No One's Here To Sleep
by mokona-pyuh
Summary: In which Shukaku doesn't take kindly to the Akatsuki trying to rip him from Gaara, panics, snags both of their souls and sends them across dimensions to a new body. Crack-ish. Gaara-reborn-as-Skull.
1. 1: Spirits in my head and they won't go

**AN: So. Gaara-is-Skull AU. Because clearly my brain goes on odd tangents when it comes to Skull. This is pretty much CRACK, people. I wrote this for my amusement, and decided to share with the world. Take it with, like, a pound of salt.**

 **Disclaimer: I own neither Naruto nor Katekyo Hitman Reborn.**

 **Pairings: Nope. None.**

 **Warnings: ...some violence ? And some psychopathic tendencies, because let's be real. It's Gaara. Also, Shukaku needs to chill.**

* * *

 **No One's Here To Sleep:**

* * *

The last thing Gaara would ever remember from his life was the agonizing pain of being ripped apart from inside, as Shukaku was brutally extracted from him.

Or, well, it _would_ have been that, if not for both his and the sand's spirit's stubbornness in sticking to each other like super glue.

Gaara had never been really happy to play host to a demon, and felt that he was pretty justified in that since it had ruined most of his life. But, well. Misery loves company and all that. After a while, he had sort of become used to that murderous voice in his head that gave him _really bad_ life advice.

In a way, Shukaku had always been there for him. Protecting him from harm, making snarky murderous comments, brooding right there with him when he felt down… It had to mean _something_ , right ?

Clearly it did, because the moment they tried to rip them apart, neither Gaara nor Shukaku was very happy with the idea.

One, it was painful. Two, it would very probably kill one, if not both of them. Three, if one of them survived he would be alone. Four, the Akatsuki was probably planning something really bad with them – or at least with Shukaku – and neither host nor demon were really eager to help them do it.

So, really, the last thing Gaara remembered from his life was the agonizing pain of being ripped apart from inside _while_ both he and Shukaku mentally went _nope nope nope not happening nope_ and clung to each other like their lives depended on it. Which it did. Kind of.

He also remembered, really distantly, something bright and odd and twisting but. Well. He thought he had hallucinated that part. Or that it was due to the 'we're dying in an evil ritual' thing.

As it turned out… Yeah, maybe he should have paid more attention to the bright, odd and twisting thing.

But you know, hindsight and all that.

* * *

Gaara had never contemplated any sort of philosophical question about death. To him, death was just… the end. Darkness, nothing. You were in pain, you passed out, and that was it.

Rebirth was, along with many religious and philosophical ideas, an impossibility to him.

Which explained why, when a two-and-a-half years old 'Shugu' started _finally_ making sense of all the pictures and feelings that had always been in his head, he didn't get it. Sure, a part of him – the part that had finally a brain developed enough to understand some things – thought that those were his memories from another life, a life where he had been Gaara of the Sand Waterfall, jinchuuriki of the One-Tail.

But a much greater part of him just thought that he had been given memories from someone else, maybe a cosmic mistake or whatever. Or just that he had had a very vivid dream, and had trouble distinguishing it from reality. A lot of trouble actually. Not that it was really surprising, since, you know, between a whole life as Gaara – a life that, all things considered, had been rather short – and the two miserable years of life as 'Shugu', _somehow_ the decades-or-so years of memories seemed _more_.

How incredibly odd.

Still, the two-and-a-half years old didn't think he had ever been that person named Gaara. Even if sometimes he got confused, he thought it was just that - _confusion_. Because once you were dead, you stayed dead. Also, he couldn't control sand, he could sleep, and he didn't have a murderous voice in his head.

There. Proof.

Now, if he could just stop dreaming about this…

* * *

The problem with those vivid dreams, were that even if they weren't _his_ , they still left a very deep mark on the psyche of the developing infant.

As in, he was a lot smarter than a lot of kids. His 'memories' helped him learn to walk, to eat, and to understand the world very fast. Many people would have thought him a genius for that.

But, those 'memories' were of a whole other world, and that didn't help. At all. In fact, it was the contrary of helpful because _somehow_ he now knew a whole new language that _no one spoke_. And he had a whole vision of geography, and history, and technology and- well. His vision of the world wasn't accurate. At all.

'Shugu' certainly wondered, at the tender age of three, how he had managed to have such an intense dream and a _genius_ mind, that he had invented a whole world with it's own language, culture, and socio-political problems.

It was impressive, really.

It was also very annoying, because now he had to learn the truth and not mix it up with what his brain _insisted_ was the _real truth_.

At least, he thought, he could always become an author later in life, because he clearly had a great imagination.

Really, ninjas and demons ? Ha.

* * *

Shugu learned, at three, that his name wasn't, in fact, Shugu. His parents called him 'Sugar', which he hadn't understood. How was he to know that it was a pet-name, and not his real name, when he was still having trouble with the language ? Had no one ever thought that maybe one day it would be problematic when someone tried calling his real name, which was Kristopher ?

Shugu, learning that fact only due to learning ingredient names and realizing that the sugar and his name were really similar, was _not_ impressed.

It did make his parents laugh, though, when he stared in confusion at the white powder and then said, in the most offended tone ever – if not the best grammar.

"You name me for _that_ ?"

* * *

Now, at three-an-a-half years old, Kristopher-Shugu-Sugar was your average kid.

Sure, he had decided that his name was Shugu and he was sticking with it. Any variation of Kristopher was ignored. Really, it was way too long and complicated for a name ! Who named their kid 'Kurisutofuru' ?

His parents, apparently.

Shugu had already had so much trouble learning the language, he was not going to complicate his own life with a name like that ! Shugu, at least, had the merit of being a simple, _normal_ name.

But really, kids deciding they wanted new names wasn't weird.

Kids having a very active imagination and confusing dreams and reality wasn't really weird either. Not that Shugu went around telling people that he had a whole other life stuck in his brain because he had made a fixation on a dream when he was younger. A dream where he was the leader of a military dictatorship with child-soldiers as mercenaries. He had more sense than that.

And well, compared to what _Gaara_ 's life had been, Shugu's life was really normal. He had loving parents, a normal childhood thus far, and none of the fantastic powers that had ruined Gaara's life in the end.

He was maybe a bit awkward, a bit too perceptive, and had some trouble with social cues, but once more it wasn't too weird. His parents thought he would grow out of it, and Shugu certainly intended to. At least, he would learn to fake his way through life, if he didn't manage to learn how normal people acted.

But, he _would_ try, intently, to learn. His very normal, average life depended on it.

Let it be said, Shugu _liked_ his average life.

It was a bit boring, but boring was good too, in it's own way. Better than having a demon stuck in you that whispered murder, kept you from sleeping and probably would be very bad for his sanity. Maybe controlling sand would have been cool, but it came with so many cons that Shugu really didn't want it.

No sir. He was average, and would _stay_ average, thank you very much.

* * *

Of course, because life is never fair, it was at that time that Shukaku decided that his nap had been long enough.

* * *

Shugu stared with wide eyes at the dog. Or rather, the mess of flesh, bones, blood and fur that had been a dog. The sand slithered away from the corpse and, easy as breathing, came to stick to the stunned child like a second skin.

"Oh, _no_ ," Shugu murmured, more to himself than anything else. He was certainly glad that there was no one else around, because he was pretty sure he would be in trouble otherwise. " _No, no, that can't be happening_."

He had, in his shock, reverted to the almost instinctual language of his dreams. Dreams that were, clearly, more than that since he had just killed a dog with sand to protect himself.

 _Oh, come on_ , a voice like the hiss of water hitting scorching desert sand murmured right back, in his mind, _is that how you thank me for protecting you ?_

Shugu didn't take more than a second to link the voice to Shukaku's, the demon from his dream. That, clearly, weren't dreams.

He scratched at his skin, making the sand covering it chip away – only for the armour to reform in less than an instant. Inspecting his hand, he found that, just like in his dreams – _not dreams, memories_ – there was no indication of his natural, demonic protection. He looked normal, not covered in sand.

His gaze then moved to the mess that had once been a dog, and he grimaced.

Damn it. There went his average life.

* * *

Coming to terms with the fact that apparently he _was_ the reincarnation of Gaara, took Shugu the better part of two weeks.

Denial, anger, depression, bargaining, acceptance, and all that.

Let it be said, the denial part wasn't easy when you had a voice in your head and sand creeping up your skin. And the anger part consisted mostly of him finding sand-pits and kicking the sand while Shukaku laughed himself sick.

But the depression, well. Shugu had been Gaara. Gaara was dead. Gaara had lost not only his life, but his world, his family, his friends. Shugu had new ones, but it didn't make up for it. So he spent a lot of time just… Grieving. Mourning for all that had been, all that could have been, all that couldn't be now.

It took him a long time to come to terms with the fact that yeah, no, he still wasn't Gaara. He was Shugu, and the only thing he had from before were memories and a sand-spirit stuck inside of him.

Which, really, Shugu wasn't sure if it was a good or bad thing.

 _A good thing, I'm wonderful and you should be honoured that you still are my host,_ Shukaku told him grandly.

 _Right_ , Shugu thought back dubiously.

At least he wasn't alone. On the other hand, he had a murderous voice in his head. He was a clear-cut case of nut-job in training, and was probably going to end up either in prison or in a mental hospital.

And he had thought his dream-memories were bad.

* * *

 _By the way,_ Shukaku told him one day, _you didn't tell me about the fire power. It's new._

That made Shugu draw short.

"What fire power," he asked flatly, thankful that he was alone – nothing to see there, just a crazy kid talking to the voice in his head.

 _Well,_ Shukaku said, _you don't really have chakra, you know. I'm the one providing that. But_ you _have some sort of weird purple fire instead. It's been helping you heal, among other things._

Shugu put his face in his hands. Another weird power. Why. Why him ?

 _Now you can't blame me for not having an average life,_ Shukaku pointed out gleefully, _you would have been weird anyway !_

His host simply groaned.

* * *

Shukaku being asleep had, apparently, to do with the reincarnation bit. The demon had wanted to stay with his host, but his host had died from shock. So, drawing from both of their desperation to just _get away_ , the demon had managed to send both of their spirit _somewhere_ where it could have a new body.

Neither host nor demon were sure _how_ they had landed so far from home, in a world without chakra or ninjas or anything known. But they had, and it had taken a lot of Shukaku's energy. So the demon had slept to restore himself.

Now that he was awake, though, it meant that _Shugu_ needed to stay awake as well. Especially since the seal hadn't actually traveled through space with them. Of course not. That would be _too fucking easy_.

The only reason Shukaku wasn't out and on a rampage was some... flimsy fluke, having to do with that odd purple fire. Apparently it was a representation of Shugu's force of will or _something_ , and it was what kept Shukaku from being more of a nuisance than usual.

Unfortunately, the purple fire could only do so much, and if Shugu fell asleep Shukaku could step out and break havoc.

"Well," the boy muttered to himself, "It was nice while it lasted, I guess."

And now, back to a life of insomnia. Yay. At least the purple inner fire was apparently _also_ helping him stay alive although he didn't sleep. He supposed it was a bonus.

Or something.

* * *

Shugu often counted his blessings. Staying optimistic was a must, when you had a murderous demon in your head and when you were constantly suffering from a lack of sleep.

So he decided to be happy for anything even remotely good that happened to him. He _would_ have tried to channel Naruto, because there wasn't anyone more optimistic and just _good_ than his old friend, but he didn't quite manage it. Yet.

It didn't mean he couldn't _try_.

"Hey, Kris !" A classmate from middle school called to him, a mocking lilt to his words. "Did you know you look like a panda ?"

Shugu blinked at the boy, who looked absurdly proud of his – was it supposed to be an insult – words.

Inside of him, Shukaku started throwing a hissy fit about how he was a _demon_ , and if he had to be an animal it was a _racoon_ , and he wasn't a panda ! Pandas were cute, was _he_ cute ? No sir, he was not ! He was the destroyer, the darkness, he was chaos and murder ! He was death and blood and-

Shugu ignored Shukaku's impersonation of batman, and instead tried once more to channel Naruto. Be friendly. Make friends ! He beamed at the other kid.

"Thanks !" He said.

The kid seemed thrown off a loop. Not exactly what Shugu was going for, but eh. Close enough.

At least, he thought with a _lot_ of optimism, he still hadn't killed anyone yet ! Naruto would probably be proud.

* * *

 _You know,_ Shukaku sulked inside of his mind, _I liked it better when you indulged in a bit of death and destruction once in a while._

Shugu hummed, but didn't reply verbally. Shukaku could read his thoughts, anyway. So he knew exactly what he was thinking about his murdering tendencies. He was trying to change ! He wasn't a monster, he wasn't Gaara, he knew better now. He wouldn't kill people just because they annoyed him.

 _But you could kill people that are hurting you,_ Shukaku tried to cajole. _Like that kid who pushed you the other day…_

Shugu expertly ignored him. He was _not_ going to fall back into bad habits. No matter what happened, he would stay pacifist and in control.

No matter what.

* * *

Then one day, as he was walking home on his own from school, alone in empty streets, Shugu was grabbed suddenly by the collar and dragged into an empty alley.

Shugu barely had time to register that the guy was saying something about how a 'strong flame' like his would fetch a really good price, and how if he kept struggling he would get stabbed, 'pathetic kid'.

 _Pathetic,_ Shukaku growled in his mind, buckling against the restraints that Shugu kept on his chakra, _I'll show you pathetic !_

Now, Shugu _tried_. He really did. But unfortunately when kicking and screaming and wiggling didn't work, when he realized that he couldn't put any sort of old ninja training to use to escape, and when the guy got a dangerous glint in his eyes- His mind reverted to the old ' _kill or be killed_ ' instinct, honed by years of assassination attempts.

His eyes hardened, and Shukaku let a victorious howl when he lowered his barriers.

A spear of sand, created from his skin-tight armour, stabbed at the man's shoulder, who dropped him in shock and pain. He didn't have time to do much more, as the sand that had started gathering around suddenly closed around him, restraining him.

Shugu stared, motionlessly, at the pathetic man that had tried to kidnap him. Then, with barely a tilt of his head, he uttered words that he had thought he would never say again.

" _Sand waterfall funeral._ "

An umbrella of sand was the only thing that kept him from being splattered with the blood that rained on the alley.

Shugu finally looked down at the blood around. He felt like he should feel something but- he didn't. That man had tried to grab him, maybe kill him. He had defended himself. He had done the same many times, in another life.

Maybe he regretted having to kill, but he didn't care as much as he felt he should. The boy sighed, suddenly feeling very tired and older than he had any right to be.

" _Let's clean this mess,_ " he murmured, ignoring the way Shukaku was victoriously crowing about the spilled blood.

* * *

When Shugu stepped out of the alley, there was nothing left behind. No sand, no blood, _nothing_. And Shugu, in spite of logic – which demanded that it would happen again, since clearly he had been targeted for a reason – and in spite of Shukaku's wishes, hoped that there would be no repeat experience.

Of course, it wasn't to be, and the incident was the first of many similar events.

All of them ended in a very similar manner.

* * *

Shugu thought that it was the proof that there was something very wrong with him, when he simply grew tired of the attempted kidnappings, and pretended it wasn't happening. Someone else might have been traumatized, or- or panicked, or _done_ something.

He didn't. He just kept on going like usual, pretending that there was nothing wrong and that he wasn't almost kidnapped once every three months. He wanted an _average_ , normal life, and the gods help him he would do his damned best to get it. Fake it 'til you make it was his new motto.

Denial, and acting skills, were great.

Humming to himself, he moved onto the next math problem. Attempted kidnapping wasn't a good enough reason, in his books, to neglect his schoolwork.

* * *

Time flew by.

Getting used a new and an old life was hard, but Shugu managed. He had been a demon container for two lives, a ninja, a leader, and now a little kid. He could do this.

"Urg," he said very eloquently, putting his head on the table of the high-school classroom. "I would _kill_ for coffee."

 _Yesss,_ Shukaku encouraged in his mind, _go on a rampage ! Let me out, I'll destroy our way to the nearest coffee machine_.

Shugu ignored the demon with two life-times of practice, and turned to his classmate, who had snickered a little at his misery.

"Another all-nighter ?" Said classmate asked, amused.

"Well, I can't sleep," Shugu said, which most people didn't really understand but oh well.

"Here," a new voice said, and put a cup of the most wonderful thing ever invented in front of Shugu. Coffee.

Shugu grabbed the cup without even thinking, and gulped it down gratefully, ignoring the burn – it would heal in no time anyway, and he needed coffee like he needed air. How had Gaara survived being this tired without coffee, he didn't know. It made everything so much easier.

"Thank you," he told his amused friend gravely, "You are my saviour."

"Yes, I know, it's an all-time war against the demon trying to overcome your body," his friend mocked solemnly. "Without coffee you would go on a murderous rampage because of the lack of sleep."

Shugu snorted. Understatement of the century.

* * *

"Wait," Shugu said, staring at his friend with incredulity written in every inch of his face. "What do you mean, ' _sand has connotations with sleep_ ' ?"

His friend blinked at him, looking up from the literature essay they were both working on. Then made a vague gesture.

"Well yeah, you know, the sandman ?" He said. "Like the song ? Or the story ? I mean, most people refer to Morpheus when they talk about falling asleep, but the sandman's about just as usual... In short, the sandman comes around, and sprinkles sand in the eyes of people to make them sleep."

Shugu just kept staring blankly ahead, Shukaku's rather hyena-like cackles echoing in his head.

Talk about irony.

* * *

Growing up had a few disadvantage, where Shugu was concerned.

One, was puberty. Teenage-hood. Whatever. He had _almost_ managed to go through all this entirely in his old life before dying. He'd been almost there… And now, he had to do it again.

Weird ideas, mood swings, phases, sexuality, body changing, voice cracking, fucked sleeping schedule – oh wait, no, he didn't sleep.

At _least_ he had better control over his sand and Shukaku than he did when he was Gaara. Let it be said, Suna had probably _hated_ his teenage moods back when he had been a tiny whiny little bitch. Especially those he had horribly maimed for no reason.

Not to say that his would-be-kidnappers nowadays didn't feel the wrath of his fifteen years old angst.

Meh.

They sort of deserved it anyway, for disrupting his otherwise normal and perfectly _good_ and _average_ life.

* * *

It was one day, as he was contemplating the terrible thing that was going through puberty again, that he realized something.

Being a teenager _warranted_ something like teenage rebellion, didn't it ? He hadn't done it really properly last time. No time for it, what with wars and shinobi life and being Kazekage. Teenage rebellion would probably have ended up in murder anyway, knowing Gaara's life. But now he could do it. And he could do it peacefully, without anyone dying too ! Yay !

"Right," he told his reflection decisively as he stared at his bedroom mirror, "Shukaku, how do you _do_ teenage rebellion ?"

 _Hell if I know,_ Shukaku said, _murder ?_

Shugu doubted that. Besides, Shukaku's answer to _everything_ was murder. And the One-Tail was notoriously bad at giving life advice. The problem was that Shugu had never been quite good at anything that didn't involve being crazy and murdering people. Funny how that worked out.

"Maybe I should ask some higher authority," Shugu mused.

* * *

His mother, bless her, had long since adapted to having a kid that was just a little weird. Or a lot weird, and pretty much _not_ in phase with the rest of the world. Once she had told him so, while patting his head sympathetically.

"At least you _try_ ," she had said – which was the truth, because Shugu tried really hard to be normal. But well, one could pretend to be a well adjusted member of society but it didn't make it true.

So when Shugu went to ask her very seriously how people _did_ teenage rebellion usually, his mother actually tried to answer that without laughing. Her shoulders were shaking, and her lips were twitching, but Shugu gave her points for effort.

"It's different for everyone, Sugar," she eventually managed to tell him. "It usually means doing something different from usual, discovering yourself, questioning your beliefs, your education… Doing stupid things and just have fun, I guess."

Shugu nodded very seriously, thinking about it. He could do that. Question himself, and do something stupid and different ? He could do that.

Yeah.

Just… Give him a second.

* * *

 _...Are you sure about this ?_ Shukaku said.

Given that Shukaku was master of Bad Life Advice and even _he_ thought it wasn't a good idea, then no. No, Shugu wasn't sure about this, at all.

But then again, the whole rebellion thing meant doing something stupid and different, and that had to count, right ? He was… rebelling against Shukaku ? A bit ?

"Okay," he said, a bit nervously, "Here we go."

Steeling himself, he walked into the parlour. _Beauty and the Beast Parlour_. He had seen the name, found it ironic, decided that it would do.

He tried to ignore the fact that the words were in flashing pink, right above the words – _hair, make-up and skin care_.

* * *

"Kristopher !" His mother cried in shock when she saw him come home. She _had_ to be really shocked, since she had said his full legal name, and not the usual nickname. "What is the meaning of this !"

His father, oddly, wasn't saying anything. He was just frozen there, staring. Letting the water run uselessly over the dishes.

Shugu straightened. He actually felt quite good about himself right now, and even Shukaku agreed.

"I decided to change my looks !" He announced proudly. Then, when his parents still stared at him like he'd grown another head, he added with a bit of a shrug. "I like purple."

"You-" his mother sounded a bit choked. Then she smiled wanly. "Okay, Sugar. That's nice."

Shugu nodded, satisfied. He turned away, and went to his room. There, in the mirror, his reflection was totally different from before. While his eyes had _always_ been purple, his hair hadn't been before. And the purple make-up was new too.

But he liked it. It reminded him a bit of Kankuro, and those few shinobis that used the marks as a statement of skill, back in Suna. Marks had _always_ had their importance.

Besides, the purple eye-shadow had the merit of both hiding the dark smudges under his eyes due to insomnia _and_ to remind him a bit of the tanuki-like marks he'd had when he'd been Gaara. He liked it.

The lipstick was just for kicks, though.

"-didn't think it was what he would _do_ !" His mother's voice came to him, muffled and sounding slightly hysterical.

"He's _purple !_ " His father replied – and _his_ tone was more hysterical, and clearly he was wheezing with laughter. " _Purple Rebellion_."

Shugu was a bit puzzled, but eventually decided to let the matter drop. If his parents were laughing, then there was no problem.

* * *

"So, um, Sugar ?" His father asked him, a month later. "Do you intend to um, _rebel_ for some time still ?"

Shugu blinked when his mother started choking on her beans, trying not to laugh.

"I guess ?" He said slowly. Then he shrugged. "I think I'll keep it that way. I really like it, you know."

His father made a complicated noise in the back of his throat. His mother collapsed laughing.

 _Humans,_ Shukaku said, _I'll never understand them._

Sometimes, Shugu could empathize with that.

* * *

Another disadvantage of growing up was the sudden expectation of future plans. As in suddenly, every adult in the vicinity started asking you randomly if you knew what you wanted to be when you were older.

Shugu hadn't quite managed to reply the first few times because well. When he had been Gaara, he didn't really had a plan for the future. More like 'control Shukaku, be a shinobi, be a good weapon for Suna'. Then he had had a flash of ambition and decided 'I'll be Kazekage !'.

And that was that.

But now ? Well, he couldn't be Kazekage, could he.

Damn.

" _Shukaku ?_ " He asked, feeling that somehow he wasn't going to get a good answer.

 _Something exciting,_ was Shukaku's unhelpful reply. Then, very predictably, he added. _Maybe become a killer for hire ? Or a soldier ? Or_ -

Shugu, with all the patience that came with two lives of dealing with a murderous beast, ignored his advice. Or at least the murder part.

Something exciting, huh.

* * *

"You know," someone glued in front of a TV set in a shopping window said to their friends, "being an actor would be pretty exciting."

 _Exciting ?_ Shugu perked up from where he'd been walking, hearing the word he'd been muling on for a few days.

"Oh, I know," person number two replied, "but it must be really hard !" They made an awed sound. "I mean, have you seen the action scenes and stuff ? It looks so dangerous !"

 _Dangerous ?_ Shukaku was the one to perk up this time, because _of course_ he liked danger.

"The main actors don't do that," person one scoffed. "They have stunt-doubles for that."

* * *

"Mum, Dad ?" Sugu said, that evening. "What exactly does a stunt-actor do ?"

 _And is it exciting ?_ Shukaku asked – although Shugu's parents couldn't hear.

* * *

Shugu must have watched _hundreds_ of movies in the following months, staring at the stunts and all the cool things on the screen. _That_ was almost like being a ninja, wasn't it ? All the explosions, and the fights, and the dramatic entrances…

It wasn't totally true, but it was as close as he would ever get, wasn't it ?

Besides, he was already on his way to become an actor, since acting was the only way for him to seem like a normal member of society. Emulating Naruto had helped him in countless occasions. And it was kind of fun, he supposed.

 _That's it,_ he decided, _I'm becoming a stuntman._

* * *

"Hey, newbie," the stunt-director called to Shugu, "Maggie's grabbing coffee and snacks, do you want something ?"

 _Yes, the souls of the innocent !_ Shukaku said in his mind.

"Coffee and a bagel," Shugu called.

 _Nooo,_ Shukaku groaned.

"Sorry, _two_ bagels," Shugu corrected.

* * *

One thing that was good about the recurring attempts on his life and freedom, was that Shugu now had a really tight control on both his sand and the weird purple flames he could make.

It would have been really bothersome, he reflected as he crouched behind a rock, letting bullets ricochet all around him, if his usual sand shield was still acting up on it's own.

"And cut !" The director shouted. "Great doing guys ! We're good !"

Yes, Shugu thought wryly, it wouldn't have been good if he suddenly became encased in sand each time someone fired a rubber bullet at him. How would he have explained that to the crew ?

 _Special effects ?_ Shukaku suggested with a gritty laugh.

"Somehow," Shugu muttered to himself, "I doubt it'd work."

* * *

What Shugu hadn't really counted on, was the fact that being a _good_ stunt-actor meant becoming somewhat famous.

Between his perpetual armour, his fast healing, and the fact that he was a very fast learner in any sort of martial art and choreographed fight… Well. He soon was getting recommended for new jobs, better jobs, and making more contacts than he'd ever had.

It was when he finally got a private agent that he _knew_ he'd gotten into a mess a bit bigger than expected.

"Sweetheart, we can't use your _real name_ ," his agent told him, waving an imperious hand as if to dismiss the thought itself. "People don't remember ordinary names, or names that don't have a _ring_ to it."

"A stage name ?" Shugu said, and was rewarded by a nod and a beaming smile.

His mind, unfortunately, drew blank. While not using Kristopher would be a blessing – _finally_ he was rid of the infernal name – he couldn't use Shugu either. After all, everyone and their mothers would hear it, think 'Sugar' and he'd probably be endlessly teased about it.

"Erm," he finally shot a blank look at his agent, admitting, "I don't know ?"

"That's alright !" His agent told him, still smiling – that was starting to get a bit creepy. "I'll put it to a vote at the agency, how's that ?"

"...Sure, I guess." Shugu shrugged.

How bad could it be ?

* * *

 _Skull Demort_ – the immortal stuntman.

Well. Clearly, Shugu had been tempting fate with his earlier thought. What sort of name was _that_ ? It was almost worst than Kristopher !

Of course, his agent was gleeful. Certainly, that was a name that had a _ring_ , and that no one would forget easily. The fact that it tied into his burgeoning reputation for making stunts that most seasoned stunt-actors wouldn't dare to try, and surviving them with barely a scratch on himself was just the cherry on top of the already iced cake.

 _It sounds great !_ Shukaku enthused in his mind gleefully, like the manic ball of sand and murder that he was. _Dark and threatening, full of death-_

Shugu huffed, tuning him out.

Of _course_ Shukaku liked it.

* * *

 **In which Gaara-Shugu-Skull didn't sign up for this shit, has two lives worth of sleep that he'd like to get a refund on, and is pretty much surviving on flames and coffee.**

 **Leave a Review ! ;)**


	2. 2: The Coffee Song

**AN: Wow ! There was such a huge response, I was NOT expecting that. The muse decided to keep kicking, so here is a second chapter.**

 **Warnings: Arcobalenos being their usual somewhat dickish selves. Violence. A little tiny bit of angst that somehow managed to find it's way via Shugu's memory lane.**

* * *

 **No One's Here To Sleep:**

* * *

His parents were apparently stunned the first time they saw Shugu on screen, even if it was a small role at the time. The second time, they were more impressed, and a bit frightened. The third time, they were just amazed and proud.

Although they both probably had privately cackled like hyenas at his ridiculous stage name.

Then there was the fourth, and fifth, and then the twentieth time he starred on the big screen, and he hadn't been home in at least three years, a bit too busy travelling around. It made him a bit home-sick, and he was pretty sure his parents missed him as well.

So, once he finished a big project, he contacted his agency, told them he was taking a vacation, and went home.

"Ah, I never thought I'd see the day where you would a household name," his mother sighed wistfully. "It seems like yesterday that you were still a tiny, awkward child with a grudge against sandboxes."

Shugu spluttered, then scowled at her. Before he could say anything, though, she'd gone on, while his father nodded along.

"And now, look at you ! Still purple, and all grown up, and speaking five languages, and starring in big movies !" She beaming proudly, and a bit tearfully – although Shugu was pretty sure those were fakes. The acting was apparently genetic. "I'm so proud !"

Shugu's father clapped him on the back in a manly way, beaming proudly as well.

"Keep up the good work, son !" He said.

Shugu swallowed uneasily.

Damn.

And here he'd been about to tell them that he probably would stop soon.

It wasn't that he disliked his job, no, but… But he already knew all the tricks of the trade, had done everything that no one else dared to do, had survived the impossible, had ton a fuck-ton of interviews and gone through too many sets to count. There was nothing _new_ any more, nothing groundbreaking, nothing _challenging_.

An old, _old_ concept of when he'd needed to kill to feel validated was creeping back in, as he was staring to grow restless and bored. Even Shukaku was tiring of doing stunts, and the demon had been surprisingly enthusiastic at the beginning.

The last kidnapping attempt – although they were far in between, now that he was famous and would be missed – had ended up unnecessarily messy, painful and bloody – for the would-be kidnapper, obviously.

So yes, Shugu had been thinking of taking at least a sabbatical, and maybe go over his options to find something new to do. So that he wouldn't end up snapping and murdering everyone one day in a fit of temper and boredom.

That would be _really bad_ for his reputation.

But- but if there was something that had traveled along with Gaara's memories, it was the yearning for parental approval. His parents were so _proud_ of his career, and here he was, contemplating ending it.

He didn't want to disappoint them.

So he smiled, not really meaning it.

"Yeah," he said, and his voice felt oddly raspy along his throat, "I'll do my best."

* * *

Fortunately for everyone involved, the next project ended up being his last.

Bored out of his mind, Shugu was contemplating murder more seriously than usual, his fifth coffee cup of the hour clenched in his fist, when he met the odd man in the Iron Hat.

"I'm here to offer you a job," he told Shugu. "Well, _jobs_. Missions, if you will, with a team of six others. The _crème de la crème_ , the very best the world has to offer."

Shugu would have lied if he said he wasn't interested. Even Shukaku had stopped shouting murder in his mind to listen.

The man went on to say that the job would not be exactly _legal_ – which was, frankly, not a problem in Shugu's books. He explained a bit of what those _missions_ would entail, from guard duty, to retrieval of information or objects, and even the occasional infiltration and possibly assassination.

 _I love it already,_ Shukaku said excitedly, which was just typical.

To be honest, Shugu _was_ interested as well. It just sounded so much like the old ninja missions, from his old life, that he couldn't keep a pang of nostalgia and longing from coursing through him.

Well, he had been bored hadn't he ? And it wouldn't be forever, just a year or two. After that, he could go back to his good, old, average life.

"Sure," he told the man, eyes a bit lost in memories, "Sounds fun."

* * *

In hindsight, he would blame his decision on temporary lapse of judgement, not enough coffee, and possibly mind control.

And Shukaku.

When in doubt, blaming the insane demon in his head was always a solid excuse.

* * *

Well, Shugu thought rather wryly as he scanned the room and it's occupants as obviously as he could, that was oddly nostalgic.

The man across from him sneered at his clumsy way of observing them, and Shugu gave a mental eye-roll. Oh man. They had all already pegged him as useless civilian, even before he introduced himself, hadn't they ? They also probably had forgotten the fact that stunt-actor had _actor_ in the word.

He'd known Genins with more sense than that. Hell, _h_ _e_ had had more sense than that, even when ten years old and batshit insane. Expecting people to be skilled and hiding something was a must, as a ninja and-

And he wasn't a ninja, wasn't Gaara, and he was slowly regretting accepting this job. It was bringing back too many memories to be good.

"What about you ?" The woman whose smile was too sweet to be true, and who tried to hide the smell of blood with sugar asked him. As if he couldn't see a fellow liar and killer.

Everyone in this room had the smell of blood on them, even faintly. Of course, it was possible none of them had his sense of smell.

Then again, none of them had a raccoon demon stuck in their guts since infancy, two lives away. Maybe Shugu should just stop holding people to his standard.

"Ah, well, I'm Skull Demort, but you probably already know that," he said, giving an arrogant smirk that purposefully faltered half-way.

He saw the military woman scoff, and almost scoffed himself. It was way too easy. They didn't even think he had listened attentively, or that he'd noticed anything about them. As if. He had noticed a lot, had heard everything they said and noticed what they didn't.

He'd been Kazekage, and a shinobi. A weapon, a politician, one of the best despite his young age.

The fact that he wasn't the same man any more didn't mean he had lost every skill he'd had. With an internal rueful smile, he channeled Naruto, and gave an obnoxious smirk.

"I can- well, I'm an awesome stuntman, so I can do pretty risky things and acrobatics with no trouble, and I'm pretty strong too !" He crowed. "Anything I've done in movies, I can do in real life !"

"Oh ?" The man across from him didn't seem impressed – which was proof that he was underestimating the value of stunts, and Shugu wasn't about to correct him. "And can you kill a man ?"

Shugu paused, face freezing in a sort of shocked grimace, as if he hadn't even thought about it. It was either that or starting to laugh hysterically.

Him, kill a man ? _Never_. Come on. He was harmless, _obviously_. He had _clearly_ never killed once before in his life. He also didn't have a demon in his gut, and couldn't crush a man with a clench of his fist. Nope. Not at all.

 _Petty,_ Shukaku cackled in his mind. _Let them see how easy it is to kill them ! Let me taste their blood !_

"A-ah, hum," Shugu looked around a bit nervously, before scowling and shaking his head. "I won't kill anyone unprovoked. I don't like needless violence !"

Several scoffed, this time, even the scientist with green hair looking incredulous with the statement. Shugu found it oddly funny.

No one would ever have dared to scoff at Gaara, to even think about it. Too afraid. Knowing that with just his thought he could murder them all and leave no trace, no drop of blood.

To be surrounded by killers once more, and yet to be seen as the one without an ounce of ability to kill was terribly ironic. Shugu liked it. His lips twitched, and he scowled deeper to hide his desire to grin at them – bare his teeth to show that he could rip their throats out without a flinch.

 _What a pretty image,_ Shukaku purred in his mind. He cackled. _Oh yes ! Kill them !_

"Well, that's pathetic," the man in front of him commented, arrogance dripping out of his tone.

Shugu visibly bristled, but didn't reply. He was better than that, he wouldn't fall for such pettiness.

 _I'll show you pathetic,_ Shukaku cackled louder. _That's provocation, right ? You 'don't kill unprovoked' ? Well he just provoked us !_

Shugu ignored him, willing himself to be the better man and-

The man - Reborn, wasn't it - sneered at him.

For a second, Shugu was actually tempted to take Shukaku on his offer.

Then he channeled Naruto again, and decided to take offence and to start a brawl that he would – _obviously_ – loose. Just because.

* * *

Somehow, he _accidentally_ slipped and managed to get a boot right in Reborn's face, with a very satisfying 'crunch'. Reborn made a surprised, angry and pained sound, and he jumped away like a scalded cat. Totally _not on purpose_ , his hand smacked into the man's injured face on the way.

"I'm sorry," Shugu wailed, horrified, "I didn't mean to !"

 _Of course you didn't_ , Shukaku said with a gleeful laugh. Reborn came snarling at him, and with a yelp, Shugu dove out of the way, his foot getting in the way by total accident. _Just like you didn't mean to trip him into a wall_.

 _Obviously_ , Shugu thought back with righteous indignation.

Shukaku's laugh devolved into manic cackles. And Shugu, suddenly the target of Reborn's full killing intent, decided that jumping out of the window seemed like the better part of valour right now.

* * *

There was something oddly _freeing_ , in playing in a bigger court again.

Shugu had always denied the part of his legacy that was Gaara, wanting to find his own path without resorting to things he'd been once, a lifetime ago. It had worked, as well, had given him a sort of peace of mind, a blank slate, an excuse – an _at least I can say I did it, I tried_.

To find the part of him that had taken missions, again, was a weird sort of feeling. He dug, deep, into memories he'd left mostly untouched, finding the man – the _boy, barely a teen_ – he'd been. Found the remorseless killer, the child starving for positive attention, the mindless beast. Found the more discreet parts of Gaara, the shinobi skills he'd never really used until his mind had been less clouded.

He found the Kazekage again, the genin with the skills of a jounin that had skipped all conventions to do as he pleased. He found _Gaara of the Sand Waterfall_ , himself and yet not.

Being able to let some part of that shine through, without even getting a single odd look for it made him stupidly giddy.

This ? This was familiar territory, and yet it was completely new, old missions taken with a twist.

He'd never been more Gaara, since his rebirth, than now.

And yet, he'd never felt more like Shugu as well.

He felt just… _right_. This was nice. Fun, almost.

 _Uh-huh,_ Shukaku said dubiously in his mind, _not enough murder if you want my opinion._

Well, Shugu didn't want his opinion, actually. So Shukaku could go and be a killjoy elsewhere.

Oh, right, he was stuck in Shugu. Damn.

* * *

"You drink a lot of coffee," Lal said with wary eyes. "That _can't_ be healthy."

Shugu looked up from where he was repairing his motorcycle, coffee mug in hand, and blinked at her in confusion.

"I have no idea what you mean," he said sincerely.

Then proceeded to down his coffee, and pour himself another mug, from one of the three pots he'd prepared.

As if _coffee_ could be unhealthy.

* * *

Shugu was reading quietly, at the light of the kitchen, sipping on his coffee, when he picked up the sound of footsteps coming down the corridor. Really quiet footsteps, as light as Temari's had been when she tried to sneak past him at night sometimes.

He'd always pretended he couldn't hear her, gave her her privacy.

"Oh, Skull," Fon's voice sounded surprised, and Shugu pretended to jump half a foot in surprise, as if he hadn't heard the other man coming. He quickly turned around, eyes wide in shock, and Fon looked amused but apologetic, "Sorry for startling you. I didn't think anyone would still be awake."

"Ah," Shugu nodded slowly, cautiously – as was his right, given that none of them trusted him, and he didn't trust them either, if not for the same reasons. "That's alright, I was focused on my book."

Fon gave an interested glance at said book, and Shugu obligingly showed the cover. Fon looked a bit surprised to see it was a rather advanced book on marine biology – Shugu had always been secretly fascinated by the sea, vast expenses of water, so different from the desert. Still, he didn't comment, instead moving to make himself a cup of tea, and quietly sitting down across from him.

"You have trouble sleeping ?" The Chinese man asked, after a beat, looking as if he was trying to be understanding.

Shugu stared blankly at him, for once truly lost. Damn it, social skills and understanding. Don't desert him now.

Then he remembered the fact that he was 'civilian' and that the day had been their first assassination mission. He was supposed to be taking that badly, wasn't he ? Fon was thinking it prevented him from sleeping. Probably that he was having nightmares, and trauma and all that.

Hm. To dispel that idea or not ?

Fon, out of everyone, was one of the nicest. He was terribly blunt, and sometimes socially impaired in a way that made Shugu feel a sort of kinship – he only faked it so well through years of acting classes. He also never purposefully made him feel like he was incompetent.

Viper was nice as well, in a clear-cut way – they liked money, and free things, and otherwise didn't care.

Luce, on the other hand, was a fake so fake it sometimes made him want to rip her head off so that she could stop looking at them like that. It reminded him of some of the honeyed, poisonous politicians and shinobis in his last life, those that saw him as a weapon and a beast and a sacrifice, never a human being.

But that wasn't the point. The point was that he liked Fon, somewhat, and the man was actually the only one concerned for his mental health after witnessing murder in cold blood. Which was nice, but a very misplaced concern, since truthfully if Shugu _could_ sleep without Shukaku escaping, he would, and no amount of trauma and bloodshed could get in his way.

"Ah, I think you have it wrong," he eventually said, allowing himself to show a bit of wry amusement that clearly surprised Fon. The man deserved a tiny bit of sincerity, didn't he. "As much as I disliked the assassination, it's not preventing me from sleeping." He smiled ruefully down at his book, before shrugging and looking away. "I don't sleep, you see."

"You don't sleep ?" Fon repeated, looking a bit confused.

"Hm," Shugu nodded, wondering if he should tell him the whole truth, or not. But he'd already given a lot away, so… He settled for the official version. "I have severe chronic insomnia. I really don't sleep a lot." Try not at all. "But well, my flames keep me alive despite being sleep deprived, so I'm good."

"Oh," Fon nodded slowly. He looked at the cup of coffee he was drinking, probably making the link to his clear addiction to the drink – even Reborn didn't like coffee as much as Skull did. "Coffee helps, I take it ?"

"Coffee is the drink of the gods, and anyone saying otherwise is lying," Shugu stated faithfully.

Fon smiled a little, hiding his amusement behind a sleeve.

Shugu decided that yes, Fon was now his favourite.

* * *

The mission had gone to shit, predictably.

Shugu hadn't expected anything else, really. The group had been bickering like fools all week, and none of them had agreed on the plan. Eventually, they had half-assed something, and gone in without much preparation. As if they didn't need it. Luce, for once, had looked really strained, as if two seconds away from loosing that smile of hers and shouting at them all.

Shugu had simply let them be, playing the moron as usual, and eventually letting them decide his placement in the mission. He didn't care that they had put him out of the way. He didn't want into the chaos that it would indubitably become.

However, he rather liked his prime position to watch and hear the explosion, with only his earpiece for reports.

"-ull !" Someone suddenly shouted, making his earpiece give static. He barely recognized Lal's voice. "Skull ! Shit- you have incoming ! From the east corner !"

"Copy that," he replied, nervously.

He shot a backwards glance at his corner of the facility. His sand was leisurely retracting and coming back, either creeping along his skin or going into his pockets and pouches.

There was nothing left of the squadron that had come his way, barely two minutes before.

 _Too late for that warning,_ Shukaku commented in cruel amusement, _this is so much fun !_

Shugu rolled his eyes, smelling the barely there tang of blood, coming from his sand. It would soon vanish, disguising itself as always. No trace that anything out of the ordinary had gone down, no proof of his ever growing body count.

He tapped his earpiece, gulping to make his voice sound weak.

"I- I don't see anyone," he said, voice trembling a bit.

"Hopefully you'll get lucky and they'll miss you," Reborn said meanly, gunshots ringing nearby.

"R-right," Shugu agreed.

 _Right,_ Shukaku echoed, _or maybe we'll get lucky and get_ more _thrown our way, huh ?_

Or maybe _they_ would get lucky and miss _him_.

* * *

To Luce's credit, she only tried to have a game night once.

Viper, clearly not satisfied with having one of the best poker face ever and an edge with money that made them win at monopoly _each single fucking time_ , cheated like there was no tomorrow.

Let it be said, the fact that Fon managed to somehow win the poker rounds half of the time _anyway_ was fucking impressive.

Not that Viper looked impressed, given that it meant less money for them.

They had to distract the two of them, who engaged into passive-aggressive arguments that slowly started becoming dangerous, by suggesting a game of trivia pursuit.

Verde, obviously, started destroying the competition… Only to hit a wall of sand. Figurative, of course, Shugu wouldn't _actually_ put a wall of sand on the board. Even if it was really tempting, just to see their faces.

He did, however, take almost malicious pleasure in answering every trivia question right, and by-passing Verde completely. Verde, and Reborn, actually, who was surprisingly good at that game.

"How," Verde fumed at him, staring at the board, where the three of them were battling way away from the others.

"For once, I agree with Verde," Reborn said, cocking his gun. "How."

"I have a lot of free time," Shugu replied guilelessly, with his best innocent smile.

Reborn's eye twitched. Verde's fingers gave a spasm. Lal decided that enough was enough – she had yet to win a single game that evening.

"How about paintball ?" She asked, with a grin that had too many teeth to be reassuring.

Predictably, Reborn lit up like the sun. The others blanched.

* * *

"How the fuck are you still spotless !" Lal growled at him, two hours later, once the garden outside of the house had been turned into a colourful warzone.

Shugu gave her a sheepish grin – how did one excuse _I have an automatic sand shield that can also serve as camouflage, and I can make clones to take my place, among other things_ ? Eventually, he settled for a nervous shrug.

"I, uh, I hid ?" He said.

"Lies !" Verde exclaimed from where he was trying to scrub away a stubborn purple stain on his ass – Shugu was _very proud_ of his aim. "I saw you ! And hit you ! Several times !"

"Well, clearly not," Shugu said in a reasonable tone.

Shukaku cackled in his mind when six angry looks were directed his way.

* * *

Of course, because the arcobalenos were sore loosers, the next morning Shugu found a _lot_ of traps waiting for him in front of his room. He eyed the almost undetectable wires and weapons, and the many paint bullets waiting for him to step wrong. Now… To try and evade all that, taking a lot of time and efforts, or to simply avoid the corridor ?

Without hesitating, he closed his door, and went to the window. One was a ninja or one wasn't, after all.

The other's faces when he simply dropped by the kitchen, perfectly spotless and unruffled, not having triggered a single trap was _so_ worth it. Shugu debated for a second whether he should stop antagonizing them… _Nah._

"Good morning !" He greeted, obnoxiously cheerful.

The cup in Reborn's hand flew at his head. Only _really_ fast reflexes saved him from getting hit and boiled.

"Oh my god !" He shrieked, looking at the mess of shards and brown liquid, then back at Reborn with wide horrified eyes. "You can't just- _waste coffee like that !_ Heathen !"

Reborn's eye started twitching.

* * *

Shugu eyed his bed in disbelief. They had put _all_ the traps and pranks they could think of in it. Some that wouldn't even be possible to get rid of.

In his _bed_.

"Damn," he told Shukaku, drolly, "That's a shame. How am I going to sleep now ?"

Silence.

Both him and Shukaku startled cackling like hysterical hyenas.

* * *

"Here," Shugu startled at the coffee latte that entered his field of vision, and blinked at Fon blearily. The man smiled with some amusement, "You looked like you needed it."

"Ah," Shugu nodded in agreement, greedily accepting the beverage. "I think I'm in love with you right now."

He immediately took the coffee to his lips, and started drinking, as if he'd not drank in days. A moment later, he put the now empty cup away, sighing contentedly. He shot a small smile – genuine – at Fon.

"Thank you," he told the man.

"No problem," Fon said, smiling back, although he looked a bit surprised – by what, Shugu wondered. He sobered a little, brow puckering. "I've been checking, but… You haven't slept in days, have you ?"

"Hm, no, I haven't," Shugu admitted with a lazy shrug. He slouched back a little. "I told you, I don't sleep."

Fon looked like he wanted to say something to that, but in the end remained silent. When he left, a minute later, probably to join the others in their training session, Shugu was left wondering what that had been about.

* * *

"Skull," Verde said, two days later at dinner, surprising him – and the others, as the scientist never addressed them outside of mission parameters and planning, deeming them idiotic. "Fon tells me you have chronic insomnia."

Shugu blinked, and turned to look at the man. Fon looked a tiny bit guilty – which he could understand, but truthfully he didn't mind, given that it hadn't really been a _secret_. Anyone with his medical record, or eyes, would have eventually noticed.

Although, to be fair, the others looked somewhat surprised by this bit of news. Had they not done the background research on him ? For shame.

Even he, with his poor links to the underground, had managed something of a search into them.

"Yeah," he said, and tilted his head a bit, "I don't sleep."

"Hm, have you tried sleeping pills and other medications ?" The man asked, and suddenly Shugu realized that Fon had asked to _help_.

Except that _this_ would be everything _but_ helpful.

"I can't," he told the man truthfully. He tried to keep his ironic smile to himself, but didn't quite succeed, as he added, "I have a rather _extreme_ reaction to any sort of sleep-inducing medicine, drugs, hypnosis, or even people knocking me out forcefully."

"What sort of reaction ?" Verde, ever the scientist, asked. "Sleepwalking ? Nightmares ? Panic attacks ? Coma ? Bodily functions shutting down ?"

Shugu thought back to the few times, as Gaara, where he'd allowed himself to sleep, and give up control. He thought back, more recently, to that one time as a kid, when one of his would-be kidnappers had _actually_ managed to get the drop on him and used a strong chloroform.

Needless to mention, that one kidnapper had ended up dead with a vengeance, and the whole block had suffered a 'gas explosion'. A very sandy and murderous gas explosion.

"I guess a bit of all of that," he eventually settled on replying, and shook his head. "Forcing me to sleep is a _bad_ idea." He looked at everyone, for once completely serious. "Truly. If you see me fall asleep for some reason, run the other way."

Verde wasn't the only one narrowing his eyes in consideration. Shugu suddenly wondered if they would actually _try_ to spike his drinks or something, to test it out. They probably _would,_ too, the insane fuckers.

 _And they would deserve the hell I'll put them through,_ Shukaku said gleefully, already anticipating it. _I'll destroy them, reduce them to bloody paste, water my sands with their blood_ -

Shugu tuned him out.

* * *

Surprisingly, the next morning Luce finally snapped. She had huge bags under her eyes, and came into the kitchen looking awful.

When she looked at Shugu, though, she flinched, and Shugu wondered why. It was almost the reactions Gaara had once gotten, but he didn't get why she would start acting like that, out of the blue.

Then coffee was served, and Luce suddenly was on her feet, and knocking everything off the table. Shugu could only watch in horror as the beverage of the gods was spilled on the ground.

"My coffee," he whined softly.

Luce shot him an almost incredulous look. Then she rounded on every single one of them – except Shugu and Fon, apparently – and scolded them for even _trying_ to do the very thing Shugu had warned them against.

Understanding dawned rather suddenly. Holy fuck, they _had_ tried to drug his breakfast. His _precious coffee_. How dare they ! However, Luce was screeching enough for two, so he simply settled back in his seat to watch her tear the others a new one.

It was actually quite impressive.

"-shameful, disgraceful, and downright _pathetic_ !" Luce was screeching, as though she had been possessed. Certainly, everyone was staring at her with wide, fearful eyes, understanding that they had crossed a line, if gentle Luce lost her temper so completely. "What are you, children ? What sort of immaturity, no, of downright moronic _idiocy_ could have pushed you into being so foolishly disrespectful and harmful ?! Attempting to drug one of your _own_ teammates, just to see the result ! You all _disgust me_ !"

Then, suddenly calmer, she turned to Fon. Fon who demonstrated that he had strong survival instincts and, in response to her very sudden mood shift, eyed her warily and inched back. Luce seemed to ignore that.

"I appreciate you being smarter and more respectful about this, Fon," she said, then shot a dirty look around, "At least _someone_ has something in their head."

Then she turned to Shugu, and attempted a smile, the way some shinobi had attempted a smile once, as if waiting for him to go for the kill without warning. It looked too tense, and ill. Shugu felt weirdly fascinated at seeing that expression again.

"I also appreciate you warning us, yesterday evening," She told him. "They shouldn't have done that. Please. I apologize for them."

"Well, thank you ?" Shugu said slowly. He was truthfully a bit taken aback by so much vehemence on his behalf. She didn't even like him, and he didn't like her. Eventually, he shrugged. "But truthfully, if they attempt it, they deserve what happens to them."

Luce nodded, face really pale. She looked like she disagreed with that statement, though. He face was spelling it out clearly, that she thought _no one_ deserved what would happen if he fell asleep.

Shugu narrowed his eyes at her. She couldn't _possibly_ know. No one, and he did mean _no one_ knew in this world, this life. He had never told anyone, and had always killed every witness. And the dead didn't talk.

He resolved, here and there, to pay more attention to her.

* * *

Somehow, the whole incident was never mentioned again, and the topic neither. Luce loosing her temper so completely had the effect of shocking everyone so deeply that they decided they would be safer never even _thinking_ about it again.

Shugu certainly didn't complain.

Still, sometimes he would catch a hesitant look on Luce's face, or an unreadable expression on Fon's, or someone looking his way as if hoping to dissect him.

He wasn't sure he wanted to know what any of them thought. But hey. As long as they let him be, he was good.

* * *

"Skull," Lal, somehow, sounded really unsurprised to find him perched on the roof, in the middle of the night, just watching the sky. "Another bout of insomnia ?"

"Clearly," he answered, shooting her a brief glance. "Was there something you wanted, senpai ?"

The nickname, honorific normally, had started the moment he'd started learning japanese. He'd discovered with some fascination that the language was a _lot_ like his old one. It was still different, but just close enough for it to be familiar.

So, obviously, he decided he would keep a part of it with him all the time.

"I-" Lal sounded oddly hesitant, before she finally said. "I wanted to apologize. For the other morning. Our actions, _my_ actions were inexcusable."

"Oh, that," Shugu blinked, a bit surprised – it'd been a month ago, already, after all. Lal sure was stubborn, wasn't she. "Well, thank you for the apology."

Lal nodded, a bit stiffly, clearly uncomfortable.

When the silence stretched too much, she climbed down, leaving him alone on the roof.

Shugu wondered what social cue he had missed _this time_.

 _Hell if I know_ , Shukaku said, then, as if it explained everything. _Humans are weird_.

* * *

After that, they fell back into a routine, and everyone seemed to truly forget about it all.

Missions came and went, and days went by.

Then came a mission that led them up a mountain, and cursed them into the bodies of infants.

And just like that, Shugu's world was torn apart.

* * *

Or that would be what he would have said, had he been prone to melodramatics.

* * *

The truth was, becoming a child _yet again_ was annoying, and shocking, but nothing he couldn't live with.

What little he gathered from Luce's explanations – and oooh boy, did she have a _lot_ to explain – was barely enough to understand that it was a curse. A Curse. A sort of artefact that depended on them to keep the world going, and they needed to protect it.

All in all, Shugu took it in stride.

It wasn't like he was a stranger to being a 'human sacrifice' holding a really bad thing for the sake of the greater good. Sure, he would have liked a little warning, and maybe to have a say in this, but well. He didn't get a say about Shukaku, and look at him. He was fine.

Somewhat.

In a not-totally-crazy-but-getting-there way.

"Haa, now what ?" He muttered to himself, tuning the others out as an argument broke out yet again between his newly turned-infants companions.

Seeing them rim into Luce because they felt betrayed was entertaining for a whole minute, but after a while it grew tiring. Shugu wasn't sure what they had expected, coming from a woman that had been so clearly fake.

She was a _mafia head_. What the fuck had they expected ? Sunshine and rainbows, friendship bracelets, and somehow no stabbing in the back ? _Please_.

Shugu had been almost fully civilian this time around, up until the first meeting, but he had held no illusions about it. It had been shady, and the room was full of liars and killers. Even the friendliest shinobi, back when he'd been Gaara, could easily slit a throat. In fact, those that smiled the sweetest were always the most dangerous.

Even Naruto was deadly and dangerous and capable of terrible things, and the guy had believed in world peace through the power of friendship.

So yeah. Shugu had expected _someone_ to betray them at some point, _something_ to go wrong, and Luce to be a bitch. Surprise, he'd been right on all counts.

 _Let's murder all of them,_ was Shukaku's ever helpful input, _kill the back-stabbing woman, see how the world fares once their cursed pillars are drowning in their blood_.

Yeah, no. He was _not_ doing that.

"Maybe I'll just relocate," he huffed, quietly, barely looking at the fight. "Find myself a nice place, hole up and spend some quiet years."

 _Boring_ , Shukaku growled.

Shugu rolled his eyes. Shukaku found anything that didn't involve death and destruction boring. Personally, he could do with some vacation. He felt that he'd deserved it, for putting up with all that shit and yet another curse heaped on him.

"You know what," he mused to himself, to Shukaku, even as he turned away from the bickering infants and started to make his way down the mountain path, "I heard that Africa is nice this time of the year. I've always wanted to see the Sahara."

 _Sand,_ Shukaku stated, almost approving.

Yeah. A desert, full of sand. Right now, it sounded really nice. Hopefully, it would calm his urge to _destroy this fucked up world_ and settle him nicely.

He was a bit homesick, anyway.

* * *

 **In which Gaara-Shugu-Skull SOOOO didn't sign up for this shit, has a worrying coffee addiction, and is probably using Naruto too much as a role model.**

 **Leave a Review ! ;)**


	3. 3: Castles in the sand

**AN: First of all, thank you all for your kind words and nice comments ! You all make my days brighter ! And without further ado Ladies and Gentlemen get ready for the third chapter of this mess !**

 **Warnings: Angst having sneaked in AGAIN, depressive characters (at the beginning mostly and then it gets better), violence and murder, heavy trolling (especially of Colonello, who decided to get more screen time and thus made himself into a willing victim).**

* * *

 **No One's Here To Sleep:**

* * *

Time went on, dragging itself slowly, and dragging Shugu on with it.

Being a child again, and staying like that was frankly annoying at the best of times. Downright _insufferable_ most of it, though.

Shugu hadn't had such a hard time refraining himself from murdering _everyone_ since he'd been Gaara pre-Naruto. Yes, 'Naruto' counted as an event in his life, a turning point.

Shugu missed him, sometimes.

He missed Kankuro and Temari, too, and the few people of Konoha and Suna that he'd befriended, tentatively.

He missed the Elemental Countries, in fact, and the shinobis, and everything that came with it. He missed Suna most of all. He missed talking his language, and eating his food, and having his family, and the blistering sun trying to peel his sand armour from him…

Going to the Sahara had only made it worse, and he hadn't stayed more than two days there before all but running away from the reminders of what he didn't have any more.

He missed home. He missed being _Gaara_.

Somehow, being Shugu didn't feel as easy or natural as it once had been.

* * *

Fon found him, a decade later – maybe a bit less, maybe a bit more, Shugu wasn't exactly counting the days and they tended to blur all together lately – in his tiny home near the beach. Shugu liked that house, a small thing that fitted his new size. There was plenty of sand around, and the sea right across the kitchen window, a contrast that soothed his need for home while keeping him anchored in the _now_ and _here_.

He wasn't in Suna, very far from it, but if he shut his ears and eyes, lying down in the sand on warm days, he could pretend. And if he somehow lost his way, lost himself in memories and dreams, the smell of salt, water, and the endless blue of the sea brought him back.

That's how Fon found him, sitting on the porch of his home, staring at the sea and trying to regain some part of himself he had lost a long time ago when he'd tried to become Gaara again.

Well. No. Fon, _and Reborn_ found him there.

But Shugu didn't care much for Reborn. He had always liked Fon better.

"Skull," Fon was the one to greet quietly, when Shugu didn't react at all to their arrival. He sounded oddly subdued. "It's been a while."

Shugu barely glanced at him. What he saw there, though, made him look again, frowning. Fon looked tired, which looked _wrong_ on his baby face. And then there was Reborn, too silent and too grim.

"Hey," Shugu eventually greeted back. He turned back to stare at the sea. "What's up ?"

There was a beat of incredulous silence, and then-

" _What's up_ ?" Reborn all but hissed, sounding oddly enraged. "Ten years, not a single message, and the first thing you say is 'hey, what's up' ?!"

Shugu felt a bit bewildered, blind-sided by the sudden aggression. He turned to look at Reborn, a retort already forming on his lips- the words died in his throat when he really took a good look at the man- _baby, infant, too small_.

Reborn looked ready to murder him, and yet ready to burst into tears as well. Shugu doubted _he_ was the one to prompt that emotion, though. Something had to have happened.

Frankly, he didn't care. He cared for very little, these days.

Shukaku, at the back of his mind, was suspiciously silent, as he often was lately. Shugu probably ought to be more worried about that, but he wasn't. Worry, just like empathy, or simple interest, or other emotions felt muted. Far away, hidden behind a haze – like a mirage. Barely out of reach, but Shugu couldn't find it in himself to make the effort to reach out the rest of the way.

Everything took effort. Caring. Worrying. Keeping up with his usual masquerade.

He was tired of it. He was tired of everything.

So, much to Fon and Reborn's bewilderment, he burst into laughter. It sounded bitter and sharp to his own ears, but Shugu didn't care.

"Messages ?" He managed to gasp out, still shaking in dark mirth. "Why would I-" he giggled again, and then took a deep breath and went on- " _message_ any of you ? I don't like you."

Well, no, okay, that wasn't true.

"Okay, no, I like Fon," he admitted, calming down a little. He shrugged, still smiling too widely ahead at the sea. "But I don't see the need. What do I care, what you've been doing ? Hell, what do _you_ care what _I_ 've been doing. It's not like I hid. If you wanted to find me, you could have."

He pointed all of this pretty calmly, and reasonably, all things considered. It was true, too. Now, if he'd been hiding in the middle of the Sahara, they would have had half an excuse, but as stated before, he hadn't stayed in the Sahara more than two days, and had yet to go back to any sort of desert since.

"You-" Reborn seemed to choke back something, probably a mean comment, and then, voice full of grief that Gaa- _Shugu_ , that Shugu didn't understand. "Luce is dead."

Ah. That explained the grief.

It didn't explain why they suddenly were here.

"Okay ?" Shugu said, a genuinely confused expression on his face.

Fon looked weird, he realized. Like he'd just swallowed something unpleasant, but didn't really know if he should throw it up or not – like really bad tasting medicine. He looked a bit sad, too.

Reborn, though, looked ready to explode.

"Okay ?" He echoed, a bit too calm for it to be good. "That's it ?"

"I genuinely don't get what you want me to say," Shugu told him. "I didn't like Luce. I'm pretty sure she didn't like me either. I don't really care that she's dead – everyone dies, at some point, you should know that better than anyone else." He shrugged, and turned away. "We'll die too, eventually."

 _Not any time soon, if I have any say about it, though,_ Shukaku whispered suddenly in the back of his mind.

Shugu didn't reply, and the demon faded back to his unnerving silence.

"Skull," Fon said, and he sounded really sad now, "Don't you-" He paused, and started again. "The funeral is tomorrow, if you wish to come with us."

Why would he do that ? Shugu wondered, suddenly, if those people were even aware that he _really_ didn't care. They probably thought he was in shock, that he didn't realize.

They had never realized how much of his personality had been an act.

Truth was, Shugu himself wasn't sure how much of it had been true or not.

He didn't care.

Naruto would care.

Naruto would know what to do. He would probably punch him in the face and tell him to pull himself together, to stop moping, to live life and stop living in his memories…

But Naruto wasn't here, and wasn't that the whole problem ? Naruto, and Temari, and Kankuro, and everyone else- none of them were here. Here, all the people felt like poorly made fakes, ideas and shadows, clones and genjutsu. Luce had been like that, a parody, an echo of a life he'd known.

Had she known, he wondered sometimes, what this 'job', what those 'missions' did to him ? Had she known that she was throwing him back into memories that he'd left untouched, to gather the dust ? Had she known that she was condemning him to grieve all over again for a life he hadn't finished ?

Maybe she had. Maybe not. But in the end, _she_ had made the choice to live her own life like she did, to curse herself and to die.

He hadn't. He never had.

No one ever left him the choice of anything.

"I won't go to the funeral," he told Fon – because Reborn didn't matter, never did in his eyes, just another killer. "Go away."

Reborn looked ready to punch him in the face. Shugu kind of wanted him to do it. But Fon put a hand on his shoulder, and shook his head, and he didn't.

Shugu stared at the both of them, and a voice that sounded like Shukaku whispered to him how easy it would be to swallow them into the sand.

They left.

And he remained there, alone, with just the sea, the sand, and the demon in his head for company.

* * *

Obviously, at some point Shugu stopped moping, if only because he was getting bored and because Shukaku was becoming insufferable.

He liked it better when the demon had been oddly silent, instead of screeching his head off about being bored as fuck.

He would have liked to say that joining the Carcassa had been a thought out, logical, and rational decision. The truth was, the famiglia was at the wrong place, wrong time, and their leader had been an asshole. He bumped into Shugu, made a careless demeaning comment about _children_ …

Shugu, who had been hanging on barely to his sanity and calm, goaded all day by Shukaku's infernal whispers and screams and cajoling promises, snapped.

Saying that he lost control would be a lie. He just- ran out of fucks to give, out of patience, and simply decided that for once, Shukaku's suggestion of _murder, kill him, kill them_ _ **all**_ seemed like a rather good idea.

Soon, the whole street was filled with nothing but screams and sand.

Barely a few minutes later, those had died out as well.

"Haaa," Shugu let out a long, tired breath, not even watching as his sand gathered the blood and the bodies and made the evidence disappear. He kept his gaze on the sky, which seemed way too far away, further than ever from his low height. "What a mess."

 _A feast,_ Shukaku disagreed gleefully, _blood raining, abating my thirst ! Finally !_

Shugu hummed, and finally looked around. There was no one left alive, no one left at all, everything taken and absorbed by his sand, as always. He probably should have felt guilty, because he had once more killed for selfish purposes – to validate himself, to validate Shukaku, and not to protect as he'd sworn to do.

Yet, he couldn't find it in himself to care. He felt empty and tired, and the kills… That had been the first time, in _years_ that he'd felt alive. The first time he felt _anything_ that wasn't just melancholy and depression.

Naruto, if they ever met again, would probably be really upset at him.

"Wh- Where is everyone ?" Someone shouted, from a side-street, and suddenly there were people in some odd uniform showing up, looking around in bewilderment and a little fear. "Boss ?"

"Hey, there's a baby !" Someone else noticed, and people stopped for a second. "It can't be- I heard about the most powerful babies in the world… Do you think ?"

"Impossible," another replied, hissing – and Shugu wondered if he was supposed to hear them or not, and then decided he didn't really care. Those people were funny. "Even _those_ babies couldn't make a whole street of people disappear !"

"But we heard the screams," another muttered, hesitantly.

The whole group stopped, and stared blatantly at Shugu. Shugu simply stared back, although maybe it was hard to tell given he was wearing his helmet. They started to squirm. How odd. Those people were weirdly entertaining.

"Excuse us," one finally seemed to gather her courage. "But do you know what happened to our boss ? And the others ?"

For a moment, Shugu simply stared some more, and then he shrugged.

"I killed them," he said. Then, because it might be insensitive, he added. "Sorry about that."

"O-oh," she said, dumbly. "Um, right."

Behind her, the whole group had taken a step back, and then started to hiss back and forth, arguing about what they were supposed to do now. Apparently, Shugu had just decimated the whole chain of command and the powerful people of their famiglia. They didn't know what to do, who to appoint as boss.

Then, obviously, someone seemed to have a _brilliant_ idea.

"Hey, since _he_ killed them, it means he's strong, right ?" A guy said. "Then he should be boss ! Isn't that how it works ? Kill the previous one, become the new boss ?"

Shugu was pretty sure it _wasn't_ how it worked, but he could be wrong.

 _I always wanted minions,_ Shukaku said in his mind, still feeling pleased from all the blood spilt earlier, _come on, it could be fun !_

Fun. Well. Certainly, it would be more fun than just drifting around with nothing to do but thinking of days past.

Besides, it couldn't be _much_ harder than being Kazekage, right ? Besides, it wasn't like the bloody elders would be there to nag at him. Which was a very good thing, really.

"Sure," he said, shrugging again. He wasn't sure what to do then, and reverted to old showman habits, channeled Lee and Kankuro at the same time, and struck a pose. "I, the Great Skull-sama, will now lead you pathetic worms ! Be grateful !"

Somehow, it worked, and the group exploded into relieved cheers.

Inside his mind, Shukaku burst out laughing.

* * *

Time slowly crawled by, and Shugu found himself… better. More stable.

Gaara's memories were finally starting to recede, going back to that box at the back of his mind, buried deep with all his grief. Actually, that was not the only part of his identity that he decided to lock away.

Everyone knew him as 'Skull', now, and it wasn't like anyone would ever know him as Shugu or, heaven forbid, _Kristopher_ ever again. As terrible as it sounded, those names were as useless as 'Gaara', now.

The somewhat normal person he had managed to become, the stunt-actor, the son of that nice couple that didn't mind his weird flaws… That person, Shugu, was pretty much as dead as the Kazekage.

Now, he was Skull, Cloud arcobaleno, powerful cursed baby and commander of the Carcassa famiglia.

What a mess.

 _At least you still have me,_ Shukaku told him from deep within.

Shu- _Skull_ made sure to send the best ' _really_ dubious' impression he could towards his demon.

 _Right_ , he drawled, _because that's clearly a good thing._

The sand at his feet shifted into a hand, and slowly gave him the finger.

Skull kicked it.

* * *

As luck would have it, Skull found Fon again, barely a year after taking over the Carcassa.

"So," Fon said, sounding a bit uncomfortable – which Skull could understand, given that the last time they saw each other they were all depressed, and in a really bad place, all of them. "How are you ?"

"Better," Skull said, shrugging a little bit. He added. "I apologize, for last time. It was rude of me."

"Ah," Fon nodded, then smiled a bit wryly. "It's alright. None of us were-" He paused, searching for a word, and then shrugging, settling for non-verbal communication.

Skull hummed, nodding, a just as non-verbal reply that hopefully conveyed the depth of his understanding. Fon's smile became a bit more genuine.

"How about you ?" Skull asked. "How are you doing ?"

"Better, as well, I believe," Fon replied simply. "Although, I'm still having trouble, despite all this time…" He shook his head. "This Curse is terrible." A sharp look. "You seem to be adjusting quite well."

"The Curse doesn't really bother me," Skull admitted, maybe a bit too honestly. He had always had trouble with that. "It's annoying, and I would have liked to have the choice, but in the end what's done is done, yeah ?" With a grin, he added. "I don't lose sleep over it."

Fon smiled a little helplessly, as always uncertain of how to react when Skull was joking about his 'insomnia'. It was a familiar view, and somehow it made him feel a bit better about everything.

"Well, then," Fon said, humming a little, "What have you been doing ?"

"Oh, well, you know," Skull shrugged again, "Nothing really interesting. I've been travelling, meeting new people, seeing new places. I took over the Carcassa, as well."

Fon choked.

Ah. Maybe Skull shouldn't have mentioned that.

"It was an accident !" He defended himself immediately.

Somehow, from the look Fon shot him, Skull had the feeling he didn't believe him.

* * *

Time, as always, kept moving, and the years went on.

Leading the Carcassa was a lot like leading a village, he'd discovered. He'd gone from military dictator to mafia head. The only difference between the two was that one was more or less legal, since if you looked a bit too closely, a shinobi village _was_ a criminal empire, just the same as a mafia famiglia. A criminal empire sanctioned by the Daiymo and funded by tax money, but eh.

Once again, if one took in the rotten politicians, it wasn't _that_ different.

At least, it was something he liked, and it didn't get boring often. Still, Skull kept things a bit exciting by attacking mafia land regularly, just for kicks. It kept the Carcassa busy, at the very least. It also gave them the reputation of being incompetent morons, which was a very good cover for any stunt Skull or his minions pulled later.

He also made regular pilgrimage into the Sahara, or other deserts, when he felt like it, having finally gotten over his trips down memory-lane.

* * *

"But what the _fuck_ do you do here, kora ?" Colonello demanded, when Skull was inevitably hunted down _again_ by his fellow cursed-babies – namely him and Lal.

Skull had a feeling that his comment to Reborn about being tracked down had been taken very literally by all of them, and seen as an invitation to start bothering him. Even if that meant coming to the middle of the desert to see what the hell he was doing in the Sahara. Which, clearly, Colonello didn't see the appeal of.

How ignorant ! There was a _lot_ of stuff to do out there ! Why, for example… Hm.

Skull thought back to his usual hobbies.

Letting Shukaku have some fun gallivanting in the dunes.

Creating sand-storms for 'training' – but really because he loved sandstorms, and it was awesome, and if meteorologists were upset with him fucking up the wind patterns they could take their issues directly with him.

Sand-surfing on veritable tsunamis of sand.

Creating a lot of vague figures out of sand, and making 'cryptids' appear near populated areas to freak out the locals a little.

Training his jutsus and abilities in general, mostly against armies of sand clones.

…Yeah, how to translate that into 'absolutely normal civilian holiday nothing to see here hahahaha'.

"Eh," he said, "Nothing interesting." He thought frantically about _something_ , anything, that would be perfectly normal. Then suddenly grinned, getting inspired. "I build sand castles !"

Colonello eyed him dubiously. As did Lal.

"Are you telling me that _you_ built that ?" Lal asked flatly, staring at the one sand castle in the area.

The gigantic sand castle in front of them loomed high above them, kept solid only through chakra. It had originally been a sand _village_ , modeled after Suna, but then Skull had decided to see if he could recreate an old medieval castle. And what do you know ? He _could_.

Skull kept himself from beaming proudly – he was getting _so good_ at architecture, his castle looked awesome, and he could even _live_ inside.

He opened his mouth to tell her that _duh_ , obviously, hadn't he just said so ? Then paused, a thought striking him.

…Wait. That was another of those things that normal people couldn't do, wasn't it.

"No," Skull lied to their faces. "Of course not. It was already there before."

* * *

Sometimes, Skull forgot how utterly ridiculous his new minions were. And then they did something like _this_.

Skull stared at the tiny, red creature that was flailing in front of him, trying to escape the grasp of the Carcassa member that had brought it to him.

"An octopus," he said, flatly.

"Yes !" The man said happily, presenting him with the poor octopus. "Do you like him ?"

 _...It looks a bit like Gyuuki,_ Shukaku commented, peering through Skull's eyes. _We should eat it, and assert our dominance._

Skull ignored Shukaku, and looked at the man's hopeful face. Then back at the tiny octopus that was… somehow… making puppy eyes at him.

"…Sure," he said, "I like him."

The man beamed, and gave him the octopus. Shukaku pouted, and moodily gave a jerk against his restraints. There was a spark of cloud flames and-

The Octopus suddenly grew ten more sizes, and went purplish.

Skull stared at it. The unnamed man stared at it. Shukaku stared at it. The other Carcassa at the door, that had been stalking the whole thing – because no one in this damn famiglia was normal or had any sense – stared at it.

"Um." The man said eloquently.

 _Never mind,_ Shukaku said gleefully from his mind. _Let's keep it ! Think of the potential destruction !_

Skull was about to tell his crew members to throw the damn octopus overboard when he suddenly remembered the humiliation they went through, the last time they invaded mafia land. Which, okay, was mostly done on purpose but _still_. He had rights to take revenge anyway.

"...Okay," he said, imagining Colonello's face when confronted by a giant octopus. His grin, if it had been visible from underneath his helmet, was probably really frightening. "I'm calling him Oodako."

* * *

"You know, it's odd," Colonello said, the next time he _somehow_ , _yet again_ tracked him in the middle of the Sahara.

Skull supposed they _couldn't_ just come to see him when he was on a boat with the Carcassa, _nooo_. They _had_ to bother him the only week he took off to go on holiday. But then again, if Colonello did he would see Oodako before the next invasion, and that would just _ruin_ the surprise.

Shukaku started cackling evilly at the thought.

Skull turned to Colonello, who was still talking.

"I could have sworn that the castle looked different, kora."

Next to Colonello, Reborn was eyeing said castle suspiciously. It looked eerily similar to Versailles. Like, _really_ similar to the French castle. There were even _glass windows_. How ?

Skull had actually visited Versailles, stolen the blue-prints, taken photos of all angles, and then worked very hard to make an exact replica for fun. His other castle, the ancient medieval replica one, had been a bit boring. Of course, he couldn't very well tell them that.

So, he gave them both a bored look.

"It's the exact same castle," he lied through his teeth.

"It's probably the sun," Reborn quipped, "It can't be good for what little is left of Colonello's brain."

"Oi-" Colonello started, glaring.

"Of course, that's not a problem the Lackey has, given he never had a brain in the first place." Reborn went on breezily.

Skull narrowed his eyes at him, but didn't reply.

* * *

"Oh no," Skull said, perfectly flatly, "Quicksand. What terrible luck, senpai."

Reborn and Colonello didn't pay him any mind, panicking over the fact that they were sinking into the sand.

Maybe, had they _not_ been panicking, they might have realized there wasn't any quicksand in this particular region, at _all_. Maybe they'd even realize that _somehow_ the sand seemed to be alive and _actively_ trying to smother them.

Which would be preposterous, of course, because sand didn't _do_ that.

Maybe later, they would also realize that this was all revenge for being dicks to him, and coming to bother him when he was _literally_ in the middle of nowhere.

Yeah.

Skull didn't count on it. In the meantime…

"I'm getting help !" He told his fellow infants, and turned to run back to his castle.

If he suddenly found himself completely distracted on the way, and forgot that he was supposed to help Reborn and Colonello, well… What a _shame_.

* * *

"Sorry !" He exclaimed frantically, looking at the heads of the two babies, that had remained buried in the sand up to their neck for the whole night after he'd become _distracted_. "I was searching for a rope in my room, and I fell asleep !"

" _Liar !_ " Colonello shouted, while Reborn glared darkly at him. "You _don't_ sleep !"

Skull clutched at his chest, expression conveying how hurt he was by the implications.

Then, because he could, he started wailing and rolling on the sand, crying about how _se_ _n_ _pai doesn't love me any more_ and _oh ye of little faith_ ! All properly hysteric and distraught, of course. Complete with fake tears that they couldn't see under his helmet.

If that meant that he didn't release them from the sand for another good twenty minutes, well then. Colonello should know better than to upset the 'crybaby' of the group.

* * *

 _Odd how there wasn't any quicksand when_ you _rolled around right next to them, crying,_ Shukaku pointed out, perfectly mild, the moment the two morons were gone.

 _Isn't it just,_ Skull agreed, just as mild.

 _One would think it wasn't actually an accident, that they fell into that,_ Shukaku went on.

 _I have no idea what you are talking about,_ Skull said innocently.

 _Of course, of course, just making conversation,_ Shukaku agreed pleasantly.

Silence.

…" _I fell asleep", though ?_

Both of them started cackling.

* * *

An explosion rocked Mafia Land. Colonello sighed.

"I bet you," one guard said, "That it's the Carcassa invading."

"Sucker's bet," another one snorted.

"Shouldn't we get out of there and go help ?" A newbie, still naive and unknowing of the useless disaster that was the Carcassa, asked.

"Nah," someone else said, relaxing in her chair. "Can't be bothered. It'll give the visitors some entertainment."

"Besides," another said, red hair and a cocky smirk, "It's the _Carcassa_. How bad can it get ?"

There was another explosion, and then suddenly hurried steps outside. A moment later, someone burst in, looking harried.

"Guys !" He shouted. "The Carcassa is invading ! And they have a _giant octopus destroying everything !_ "

Silence. Then Colonello looked at the red-haired guard, who had lost his cocky smirk.

"I have a feeling," he started, as dry as the desert Skull liked – for whatever insane reason, "that you just jinxed us."

Another explosion rocked Mafia Land.

* * *

"That's certainly an… interesting castle," Viper allowed, when Colonello brought them to visit Skull the next time – Skull _swore_ he was doing it to get revenge for Mafia Land, there was no other reason.

"Isn't it just ?" Skull nodded pleasantly, agreeing.

"You found it like that ?" Viper asked again, politely disinterested.

"Yeah, it was just there," Skull lied. "Neat, huh ?"

"I'm pretty sure it's not the same castle," Colonello muttered, eyeing the castle with distrust.

Skull looked at his castle, which had been inspired by the Taj-Mahal in Agra. Complete with round dome, and mock garden. All in sand, of course. Except for the palm trees, that he had painstakingly uprooted from a nearby oasis, and planted there. The wonders of chakra never ceased. He looked back at the blond.

"Right," he said slowly, "You know, senpai, maybe you should check your eyes or something..."

"What, exactly, did it look like ?" Viper asked neutrally, but still managing to sound like they were just humouring Colonello.

Colonello made a sound of wordless frustration.

"Not like that, kora !" He finally cried.

"Nonsense," Skull huffed. "If you don't appreciate my _totally identical_ castle, you can leave, too."

Colonello growled. Viper turned back to Skull, dismissing the blond.

"So," they said, "Have you thought about making this a visiting site ? With a price for entry, of course."

"Eh, I'm not really…"

* * *

An explosion rocked Mafia Land, and alarms immediately sounded.

All the guards groaned at once.

"Carcassa," one cursed, as if naming a particularly annoying mosquito.

Colonello certainly could relate. He was pretty sure Skull was doing it just to annoy him at this point. It was probably revenge for accidentally insulting his castle that last time. But he could have _sworn_ it wasn't the same castle ! It was a conspiracy, and Skull was just fucking with him !

Speaking of which-

"Oi, senpai, look up !" Skull's voice cried, squeaky and ridiculous.

Colonello, perhaps stupidly, looked up.

And got a face full of slimy tentacles.

"What the fuck, kora !" He shouted, grabbing the thing and tearing it away from his face. It was- red ? Red and tiny. He looked up at Skull in disbelief. "Did you just _throw your octopus at me ?!_ "

"Right, sorry, my hands slipped," Skull said, sounding genuinely repentant. He jumped down, making a 'gimme' gesture.

"And for that matter, how many octopuses do you have ?" Colonello said, wary. The tiny red octopus slipped from his fingers, and jumped back in Skull's arms.

"Uh ? But it's the same one," Skull said, sounding puzzled.

Colonello twitched at the familiar words. He would not take the bait. He was a Rain, he was supposed to be calm. He looked at the tiny red octopus, so different from the large purple monster that had created so much chaos the last time.

The Cloud ignored him. He clutched at his octopus, Cloud flames flaring, before shrugging, and tossing the creature right back at Colonello, saying, "Here, senpai, catch and see for yourself."

Colonello snorted. He wasn't about to get nailed by the same trick twice. He side-stepped, knowing it'd be enough to evade-

The octopus suddenly grew from melon-sized to buffalo-sized.

For the second time in less than two minutes, Colonello got a face full of tentacles.

* * *

"Now I _know_ the castle looked different !" Colonello shouted, waving his arm at said castle.

Both Fon and Skull blinked at the japanese-style castle in front of him, made of solid sand. Skull took a second to appreciate the stone-garden and the sand-garden he had made, inspired by his trips to Japan and his few recollections of the Daimyo's palace. Damn, he was _good_.

Then Skull turned back to look at Colonello.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," he said, "It looks the same to me."

"It looks very nice," Fon complimented with a small smile.

Skull beamed at him. See, that was why Fon was his favourite.

* * *

Viper watched as Skull downed his seventh cup of coffee of the morning, torn between being horrified or impressed. It _couldn't be good_ for a baby-body to drink that much coffee. It couldn't be. They settled for morbid fascination, and watched as Skull poured himself an eighth cup.

"Skull," they said a few seconds later, slowly, "Have you ever considered that maybe… just maybe... you have trouble sleeping because of the amount of caffeine you drink ?"

Skull shot them a wide-eyed look, as if he had never even considered the idea and found it horrifying. Then he clutched his mug closer to his chest.

"How dare you blame _coffee_ ?" He all but hissed at Viper, bristling like an angry cat.

Viper raised their hands in surrender.

* * *

"I swear !" Colonello told Lal. "It has _changed !_ "

"Alright," she said, for the hundredth time. "I believe you."

The rounded a dune, where Colonello pointed to the castle triumphantly and-

"Colonello," Lal said, eyeing him worriedly. "It's the same castle."

It was, indeed, the same medieval castle made of sand that she had seen the only time she'd come around. Colonello gaped at the sight, before spluttering.

"But-" he started.

"Don't start telling me how Skull is fucking with you and everything," Lal warned, annoyed now. "He's currently on the other side of the planet, and this place clearly hasn't seen anyone since the last visit."

" _But-_ " Colonello tried to insist.

A coincidental breeze threw sand at his face, making him splutter and cough.

"See," Lal said, nodding to herself, "That's the gods telling you to stop being ridiculous."

Hidden in the walls of the sand castle, Skull snickered mutely.

 _The gods indeed,_ Shukaku cackled.

And for good measure, created a _totally_ natural pitfall just in front of Colonello.

* * *

Skull wiped the blood off his visor with an aggravated sound. Damn it, why was mass murder so damn _messy_ ?

 _Oh, but it's fun,_ Shukaku cajoled inside his mind, voice like a rattle-snake, _you wouldn't want it any other way…_

Skull huffed, and turned away, ignoring the way his sand was gathering every evidence of blood and gore. The few minions that were standing nearby ignored it as well, used to their boss' quirks by now. One of them offered a thermos full of coffee as a pacifying gesture.

"Here boss," he said adoringly – it was just a little disturbing, given what they had just seen him do.

"Thank you, minion," Skull said, gratefully taking the thermos.

His minion preened, while all the others immediately scrambled to grab _more_ thermos of coffee, in the hopes of getting praised as well.

None of them even blinked at the last few traces of the Fuglio members being erased by sand.

 _Good minions_ , Shukaku purred.

Skull had half a mind to agree.

* * *

"So," Fon said, sitting in front of Skull at a small beachside café. "Did you hear about the Fuglio famiglia's disappearance ?"

"A whole famiglia disappeared ?" Skull asked, wide-eyed.

"Well, given the topic, they probably died," Fon admitted easily. "But no one found bodies. Or blood. It's like they vanished from the surface of the earth. My triad was really miffed – we had a trade agreement with them. I wonder what happened to them."

 _Oh yes,_ Shukaku mocked, _I wonder_.

Skull made a noise of understanding, trying his best to ignore Shukaku's gritty laugh and pointed comments. It wasn't _his_ fault if the Fuglio had tried to betray the Carcassa.

"What a strange occurrence," he told Fon, sounding thoughtful and bewildered.

Ah, acting.

* * *

Colonello paused, upon seeing the castle. Which looked a lot more like a hill with towers sprouting off it, like odd mushrooms, than a castle, but there _was_ a resemblance. The blond whimpered and turned around to go bang his head into a nearby palm-tree. Skull watched him go, bemused, before turning to Verde.

"I don't know what's come over him," he told the scientist.

"I'm not sure," Verde said slowly, watching the Rain. "It might be the heat…"

Colonello, as if to confirm that theory, suddenly turned right back around, and started hurling insults towards both Skull and his ' _fucking shape-shifting castle_ '. Skull made an offended noise.

"My castle is _great_ ," he said. Then, to Verde, "But maybe he's right… Who knows, maybe the wind made a few towers shift a little."

" _It's not even the same architecture !_ " Colonello raged in the background.

"It is !" Skull insisted. "It's identical !"

"Hm," Verde agreed non-committally. "But is it structurally sound ?"

"Well, it _should_ be…" Skull said slowly. "There never was any accident before."

However, it didn't mean that there _wouldn't_ be any in the future. There was a first for everything, after all.

Who knew. Maybe the wind would blow extra hard today, and make a tower fall on Colonello.

That would be just tragic.

* * *

Skull hummed happily, as he let his sand come back into his few pouches, pockets, and other nooks and crannies where he stored it usually. The Carcassa minion that had been holding his coffee cup while he trained on the beach looked curiously at the phenomenon.

And kept looking, as tons of sand _somehow_ managed to fit back into his boss' pockets.

"Boss is incredible," he told his fellow minions later, very gravely. "He has _dimensional pockets_. They are bigger on the inside !"

"Ooooh !" They all gasped in awe.

"As expected of the Great Skull-sama !" One exclaimed.

(The truth was, Skull only had a handful of sand in his pocket, a few more in some backpacks, and just a layer around his skin. He _did_ however, use and abuse his cloud flames to propagate his handful of sand into _tons_ of it.

…How his sand did what else it did, though, was still something he completely blamed on Shukaku and mystical demonic chakra bullshit.)

* * *

"This _doesn't even look like a castle !_ " Colonello shrieked, pointing an accusing finger at the 'castle'.

Skull turned to look at the building. It was, frankly put, a pyramid. A really nice, triangular, huge pyramid, but still a pyramid. What could he say, his time in Egypt had been inspiring, and he had wanted to try his hand at something different that his usual 'castles'.

Skull frowned at the blond, who this time had visited alone.

"Don't be ridiculous," he said. "My castle is perfectly fine. It hasn't changed." He sniffed haughtily. "You're just jealous."

Colonello went for his throat.

* * *

 **In which Gaara-Shugu-Skull is a petty little shit, the Carcassa is made of insane nerds, Colonello REALLY should have known better, and Oodako is cute and did nothing wrong.**

 **Leave a Review ! ;)**


	4. 4: Devil in Me

**AN: So, first, I want to thank those of you who left nice and proper comments. You guys are awesome.**

 **On the other hand, those of you that left a comment that was something like 'Update' or 'It's been weeks you need to update' or 'update update update i need moar'... Well, just a tip for you - that's not how it works. Literally each time I receive an 'update' comment, even if it's 'update _please'_ (which is more polite, but still a demand pressuring the author), I want nothing more than just stop writing. You'll all be glad to know that for each of those comment, I've waited a few more days than planned before updating, which is why it took that long to come.**

 **People. Dear, dear, DEAR readers. Please. I (and every other author on that site, for that matter) am NOT a writing machine. You know what I have ? A real life, with a job, and problems that are a tiny bit more important than fanfiction. You know what I do NOT have ? All the time and motivation in the world, as well as endless patience for people who think they are entitled to what I write. Demanding of me that I update faster, that I write more to suit your needs, or that I include some ideas that you had ? Yeah, no. That's rude.**

 **Like, just... Be nice and polite ? And considerate of the fact that fanfiction authors are doing this for FREE, on their own time, and don't actually OWE anyone anything ? That's all I ask.**

 **Of course, most of you that left comment were actually adorable and really nice and just made my days. Each single comment telling me that you liked it, or that you laughed, even a simple smiley, that's just wonderful. You people should know that you're the ones that keep me from quitting when everything else weights me down. So THANK YOU RANDOM CITIZENS for that.**

 **Warnings: the usual violence, the usual trolling, the usual mangling of canon.**

* * *

 **No One's Here To Sleep:**

* * *

"The end is near ! Skull of the Arcobalenos is a demon in disguise ! The devil lives in him, in the form of a sandstorm, and will destroy all that we love and-"

"What the fuck." Reborn said, with feeling, staring blankly at the crazy-eyed guy standing at the corner of the street, standing on a large box and screaming.

"Don't mind him," Colonello said, snorting. "That's Crazy Colin. He's always there, shouting about the apocalypse and Skull being the Antichrist and stuff."

"...Skull ?" Reborn echoed, flatly.

"Yeah," Colonello shrugged. "We think he just lived through one too many Carcassa invasion of the island." He nodded grimly. "It's quite traumatizing. So much incompetence... and the octopus... and the fucking sand castles..."

Reborn stared at his fellow Arcobaleno, who was looking haunted, and mumbling something about ' _just so much sand... so many castles..._ '. Suddenly, the posters he had seen about a Mafia Land support group to talk about the Carcassa Invasions made a little more sense.

"Are you alright ?" He asked, warily.

"Of course," As if nothing had happened, suddenly Colonello was back to normal. In the background, Crazy Colin was still shouting about giant tentacles made of sand that would crush the world like a ripe fruit. "Now, lets ignore him and continue. I do NOT want to talk about Skull today, thank you very much."

Reborn nodded cautiously.

* * *

Given that, unlike _some_ , Skull did not stalk his fellow Arcobalenos for kicks and giggles, and certainly didn't go searching for them in the middle of the desert like a creep, and didn't talk shit about their amazing sand castles or their coffee drinking habits, and… Ahem. Right.

Given that he did not keep up with the events in their lives, at least not much, Skull didn't really pay any mind to the Vongola, and Reborn's student.

He was _forced_ to, though, when the Dick in the Iron Hat contacted them all in a dream, to tell them there was a cure to the curse. Because _obviously_ the Vongola would get involved into this. Fucking Reborn.

Like _that_ clusterfuck with Byakuran and the future-that-wasn't wasn't enough.

* * *

 _Skull wasn't sure what was happening. He had been happily spending time in the Sahara when people had suddenly dropped from above. They had been ready to fight, but Skull being the - mostly - pacifist person he was, tried to talk first. It worked surprisingly well._

 _Then again, most villains loved to monologue._

 _"Wait, so you want to capture me, so you can extract the ancient power artifact that was forced on me," Skull said to the people in front of him. They were wearing the Millefiore uniforms. "Did I get that right ?"_

 _"Yes," one of them helpfully agreed._

 _"And the extraction would probably kill me, right ?" Skull added, just to be certain._

 _They made awkward noises that probably meant yes as well._

I, _Skull thought flatly to Shukaku,_ have the weirdest feeling of déjà-vu right now.

 _"And I suppose you wouldn't be willing to reconsider ?" Skull tried nonetheless. "I really don't want to kill you guys."_

 _"Sorry, it's nothing personal," one of them said, shrugging, and then lunged at him-_

 _Only to suddenly come to a halt. He wasn't the only one whose eyes widened when he realized the sand was quickly enveloping them, and certainly not the only one who looked at Skull with a frightened expression when he realized that the baby was the one currently controlling it._

 _"What are you doing ?" He screamed in panic._

 _"Ah, sorry man," Skull shrugged. The Millefiore agents could swear that there was a golden eye gleaming through the visor of his helmet. " **It's nothing personal**_ **.** _"_

* * *

 _Meanwhile, in the Millefiore HQ._

 _Byakuran stared blankly at the screen._

 _Soichi stared blankly at the screen._

 _The Cervello stared blankly at the screen._

 _"That guy is the_ weakest _arcobaleno ?" Byakuran said, flatly._

 _"Yes," the Cervello confirmed._

 _"Right," Byakuran said, nodding wisely. "Right, fuck that. We are killing the arcobalenos with radiation poisoning. That seems safer."_

 _Tellingly, no one objected._

* * *

Yeah, dying from some sort of poisoned wave that affected the tri-ni-sette hadn't been fun at all, and frankly both Skull and Shukaku had felt a bit cheated.

Which was probably why Shukaku was so happy with the news of battles to get the cure that he was practically dancing in Skull's mind.

 _Battles !_ Shukaku cheered. _Blood and gore and fights ! Yeeesss !_

Right.

Skull didn't point out that it all reeked of a trap. Shukaku would probably not listen to him.

Why had he accepted again ?

Ah well. How bad could it be.

* * *

"Is that Byakuran ?" Skull asked no one in particular, when team Yuni showed up.

 _Oooh, that motherf-_ Shukaku started, which Skull tuned out just in time. The demon cursed some more, before finally suggesting, _We could swat him from the air. Look at those wings. He's just_ begging _for it._

Skull had to admit, it was tempting. Very, very tempting-

"Skull ?" Enma asked slowly, nervously. "We're not joining in that battle, are we ?"

Skull turned a mostly innocent look on the teenager. Enma, weirdly, didn't seem reassured.

"How about I make you coffee at home," the teenager suggested, "And we can join... another day... against people that are a bit less... um. Strong."

"The Great Skull Sama _is_ strong !" Skull protested huffily.

"Of course," Enma immediately agreed. "Does that mean you don't want coffee ?"

Skull hesitated for all of one second.

Damn him and his manipulative ways. To use coffee against him was cheating.

"No, no, no," he hastened to say. "Let's go get coffee !"

 _You are so weak,_ Shukaku despaired.

* * *

Then Bermuda had the brilliant idea to punch a hole right through Skull's brain.

Predictably, neither he nor Shukaku took kindly to that, and the One-Tail roared in Skull's brain, rising to the surface where Skull's consciousness faded.

Skull's last conscious and somewhat intelligent thought, in the midst of _pain, pain, pain_ , and a vague, delirious, _shit, what the fuck_ , was that Shukaku had better watch where he was stepping. He didn't want to find his companions as blood smears on the ground, flat as pancakes. Especially Enma. He made very good coffee.

Then, for the first time in a long time, he slept.

* * *

When he woke up again, he was in the middle of a sand cocoon, and he could feel Shukaku curled around him like a living, malicious sand-hill entombing him.

Skull blinked, and although his thoughts were still hazy, he struggled to wrestle his demon – literal one – back into him.

" _No !_ " Shukaku roared, both mental and aloud, and that was a really _worrying_ fact, because it meant that the demon really was out and about for who knew how long since Skull lost consciousness. " _I will not be-_ "

Whatever Shukaku would not be, Skull didn't really care. He had the mother of all migraines, and his entrails were doing knots, and he was really hoping that the destruction wasn't _that_ bad. So really, he had no time, nor patience, for a demonic temper tantrum. Shukaku could complain later.

Suddenly the sand _shifted_ , and Skull heaved a sigh, knowing he had succeeded. Shukaku, in his mind, felt furious and worried and exhausted, and that was several more levels of _bad_.

Digging himself out of the sand-hill that was his demon, Skull couldn't help but wonder _how long_ he'd been out for.

A touch to his head told him he was completely healed.

Which probably meant it'd been hours, if not _days._

Skull finally resurfaced, sand shifting to accommodate him, and he had to blink away the desire to take a nap. He had slept for long enough. Instead, he focused on his surroundings. Which were made of… trees. Everywhere. Some of them – a lot of them, in fact – were more than a bit destroyed, in what seemed like a path.

"You-" Skull struggled with the words, throat raspy – he suspected that he literally had sand in his throat, or as near as it got. "You brought us to a _forest ?!_ "

 _What ?_ Shukaku sounded mutinous and angry, and still terribly exhausted. _You would have preferred the city ?_

"No, of course not, but..." Skull hesitated.

 _You needed healing, and they would have attacked you further if I didn't leave,_ Shukaku said. Then, disgruntled. _You are welcome, ungrateful brat._

"Right, yeah," Skull swallowed, painful and dry, "Thanks, Shukaku."

It took him a bit more time to finally adjust to the fact that, yes. He was on a really huge sand-hill, in the middle of a forest. Shukaku had brought them here, had curled on the ground, and had guarded him like an odd, giant sand gargoyle.

Skull's mind was pretty much blown.

Of course, that was the moment that his – as of yet unnoticed – watchers decided to speak up.

"What the actual _fuck,_ kora !"

Skull whirled around, only now noticing that there were people perched in the trees, like really weird fruits, watching him like he was an alien. The arcobalenos were all there, eyes wide and wary.

...Which, given that he just 'hatched' from a sand-hill that was previously a sand-demon, might be understandable.

"Um," Skull tried for a smile, which was probably not very successful. "Hi ?"

* * *

"Well," Skull said wisely, looking at the destroyed block, the blood stains and the rubble that had previously been a city block, "That could have been worse."

"Could have been-" Verde choked from somewhere next to him. " _How._ "

"You know, Shukaku was pretty much focused on keeping me alive, instead of destroying everything," Skull explained, with a tiny shrug. He added, wryly. "Which is frankly surprising, because the last time something like that happened, he didn't even care what happened to me, and simply flattened a good part of a city."

"This happened before ?" Lal said, looking terribly pale.

"Well yeah," Skull snorted. "Why do you think I don't sleep ? I'd _love_ to, honestly, but if I loose consciousness even just a little bit I loose control. Unfortunately, people _have_ managed to put me to sleep or knock me out before." He grinned, and they all looked at him warily. "Why do you think Luce lost it so badly, that one morning you tried to drug the breakfast ?" He enjoyed the whitening of all their faces, and his grin became a little more viciously amused. "Yeah, I wouldn't have liked to die so stupidly either, but then again you would have deserved it a bit."

He paused, and then amended.

"Except Fon, maybe," he said.

"I appreciate that," Fon said, a bit wanly.

Skull beamed at him.

* * *

"Oh, by the way," Skull said, suddenly remembering something.

His fellow arcobalenos looked at him warily, waiting for him to ask.

"What happened to the battles ?" He wondered - and they all face-faulted.

"We're not cursed any more," Viper was the one to reply succinctly. "Most of the representatives and fighters have gone back home."

"Oh," Skull nodded, thoughtful. Then a thought struck him, "Did I - or Shukaku I guess - hurt anyone important ?"

All the arcobalenos got a distant look on their faces, expressions pained.

* * *

 _" **Come back here you pigeon !**_ _" The gigantic mass of sand that had been Skull screamed at a panicked Byakuran, jumping and trying to swipe at him. "_ ** _Come back and let me eat you !_** _"_

 _From the sidelines, where everyone had evacuated, Tsuna looked horrified._

 _"Should we help him ?" He asked._

 _Incredulous looks were shot his way._

 _"Do you want to_ die ? _" Squalo asked. He snorted. "Nah, let the white-haired marshmallow fucker get swatted like a fly. Good riddance I say."_

* * *

"Well, Yuni was very upset when you put Byakuran in the hospital, which is why she isn't there," Lal eventually said with a grimace. She added, after a beat, "He'll make a full recovery of course."

"Ah, of course," Skull echoed.

 _Damn it,_ Shukaku grumbled.

* * *

Then, of course, came the part of the explanations that he really wasn't looking forward to.

"Okay," he huffed, looking at his coffee cup with the vague hope it might help him. "So. This is going to need you to suspend your disbelief for a few minutes, okay ?"

"We've seen you morph into a giant sand monster," Viper said dryly, "I think we're ready to hear anything at this point."

"I think at this point I'd believe in alien life," Colonello muttered in agreement.

"Yeah, no, I'm not an alien, and neither is Shukaku," Skull snorted. Then paused. "I think."

He absently waved a hand to make his sand pile on the table, under the rather wary and disbelieving eyes of the others. They still hadn't adapted to the fact that he could control sand. Or the fact that he had _always_ been able to, and had just hidden it really well.

A twitch of his fingers, and the sand became nine miniature figures of the bijuus, as they should look like. He gestured to them.

"Those," he started, "Are tailed beasts. They are, simply put, enormous masses of pure energy, given form and sentience. The how and why they came into creation is mostly myths and legends, and I'm not about to go into that, so just take it as an act of some god and leave it there." He ignored the dubious looks this got him, soldiering on. "All tailed beasts are _incredibly_ powerful, and large. You've seen Shukaku – he's easily the size of a building, and that's when he's still anchored to me. He actually gets around twenty story high, at the very least. As do all the other tailed beasts, for that matter."

 _That_ at least, got him something other than disbelief. Instead, they all looked at the tiny figurines made of sand, and clearly tried to imagine them being their actual size. In Skull's mind, Shukaku started cackling at how white their faces got.

"Right," he said, smiling a bit wryly, "I see you're starting to get the problem. We have nine creatures that size, made of energy, able to raze mountains with a swipe of their tail. And those beasts, at some point, were freely gallivanting around the countryside."

"Somehow, I doubt people liked that much," Lal pointed out a bit weakly.

"Well, obviously they didn't," Skull agreed dryly, "Except that it's almost impossible to kill a tailed beast, and even if you _somehow_ managed to kill one, it would just reform a few years down the line – since they are made of energy, they are arguably god-like immortals." He shrugged. "So, when the humans realized they couldn't very well kill them, they decided to find another way. They thought that they could at _least_ imprison them and seal them away instead."

He took a sip of his coffee, then shook his head.

"As you can guess, it wasn't the end of the story," he huffed. "Some ass, at some point, decided that _hey_ , since we could seal them away, we might be able to _use_ them, right ?"

"That sounds both really stupid and actually like something someone would say," Reborn snorted.

Well yeah, because human nature was like that. Also, Skull was currently skimming over centuries of history, but they didn't have time for the long, world-building version. So, instead, he simply grinned.

"Yeah, it was a stupid idea," he said, which garnered a few snorts and 'no kidding'. "Anyway, eventually, someone had the _bright_ idea to seal the tailed beasts inside _people_ , instead of containers like pots or tea kettles."

"Tea kettles ?" Fon noted.

"Shukaku was in a tea kettle before getting shoved into me," Skull said, with a wave. That seemed to remind them of the situation, and they eyed him a bit more nervously. He grinned at them. "Yep. As you can already guess, although the first few attempts ended really badly, someone eventually managed to find a more or less viable way to stick a tailed beast into a host. Those people, like me, are called sacrifices – because we're the only thing standing between population and destruction via angry and resentful god-like creatures."

He hummed, taking another sip of coffee, and went on.

"To be perfectly blunt, sacrifices are pretty much the equivalent of a nuke, and that's how we've always been treated. Really powerful weapons that could loose control and explode in the face of others at any point," he rolled his eyes, even if it was pretty accurate – the whole attitude was the reason such explosions happened in the first place. "But that's not the point. The point is that generally, people get a seal master, and often a very young child – or an older host with enough vitality that they'll adapt and survive the shock. And then, they shove the demon inside, seal it away, and depending on their abilities, make the seal more or less full-proof."

"Is that what happened to you, then ?" Verde asked, looking very interested.

"Nah," Skull snorted, "I come from a place where there was no seal master. The leader still decided to go through with it, and stuck the demon into a pregnant woman, making someone with really shitty seal skills making the seal." He gave them a wry look. "Needless to say, there were a lot of complications, and the seal was so shoddy that I was pretty much a ticking time bomb."

"Was ?" Reborn arched a brow.

"Okay, yeah, still am, somewhat," Skull admitted freely. "Still. Normally, a seal cuts the sacrifice from the demon, so that nothing bleeds through. You can still use it, use the whole energy boost and any pro that comes with, but it avoids problems like possession, or demons getting loose."

"I take it your seal didn't work like that ?" Viper asked.

"Nah, my seal worked barely as a container, one that had so many cracks it's a wonder it actually held," Skull said. "It kept Shukaku inside of me, but I've shared a mind with him as long as I can remember, and as mentioned I can't sleep or fall unconscious without him breaking free. And that's without mentioning all the years I spent getting the sand under control, because it kept attacking anything that startled me, let alone scared me."

"So, you have a demon in your head, and in your guts, is what you're saying," Colonello said flatly. "How are you still sane ?"

"Eh," Skull shrugged. "I had a period where I was psychotic. Pretty much killed everyone I felt like. Then a friend – the sacrifice for the nine-tails, actually – beat some sense into me." He paused for effect, and spread his arms. "And now I'm better !"

He gave them his best Naruto-inspired bullshit smile. The way they paled was wonderful, and Shukaku was cackling enough for two. Keeping a straight face was getting difficult.

"Anyway," he waved a hand, dismissing the matter, "That was actually _before_. At some point, some guys that wanted to extract and keep the tailed-beasts for themselves managed to get a hold on me, and tried to extract Shukaku. Neither he, nor I were really fond of the idea, especially since it would have killed me. So Shukaku, in a panicked flailing moment-"

 _Hey ! I did not panic ! It was totally intended_ , Shukaku protested.

"Right," Skull scoffed, rolling his eyes, "Exc _use me_ , Shukaku, in his _infinite wisdom_ and not totally panicking like a headless chicken, decided to high-tail it out of there and somewhere _really_ far away. Given that we were in the middle of a ritual, and that he didn't known what the fuck he was doing, he grabbed my soul, grabbed his own, and shoved it in a new body in a completely different dimension. Just to be sure we'd be far enough, you know."

Skull grinned, and gestured to himself.

"New body, new me," he announced grandly, and was rewarded by a truly pole-axed look on most of their faces. Then he huffed, and grimaced. "The only trouble with that, is that in this world there are no sealing masters _at all_ , and that obviously the seal didn't transfer with us."

"Wait- Are you saying you _don't_ have a seal ?" Reborn hissed.

"Nope," Skull said. "I'm holding Shukaku pretty much on will-power and _his_ goodwill alone." He paused, and amended. "Well that, and caffeine."

They looked at him like the world was ending.

Skull felt he could be excused for laughing in their faces.

* * *

After that, well…

Things pretty much went back to normal. All the Arcobalenos went on their merry way, doing whatever they had been doing before, and simply going back to living a normal, if not cursed life.

Maybe one difference was that they regularly met up in their old House, just to get news and to check up on each other's development. No surprise there, it had been Verde's idea, and the others had all agreed to keeping in touch. It felt just like old times, really.

Except that now his fellow Arcobalenos were walking on egg-shells around him.

 _Pshhh,_ Shukaku said dismissively, _cowards_.

"Hmm," Skull hummed, taking a sip of his coffee. The others were asleep, and he was the only one awake right now, as it was often the case, "I give them a week before they realize I haven't changed."

 _Or,_ Shukaku tried slyly, _you could kill them and save yourself the trouble._

Skull snorted, and rolled his eyes, but didn't reply. Typical Shukaku. Some thing never changed.

* * *

"Wait," Colonello said suddenly, stopping in the middle of the corridor, gathering several curious looks from the other arcobalenos. "You control sand, kora."

"Um, yes ?" Skull said, a bit bemused.

Colonello turned to him slowly, murder in his eyes.

"That castle, in the desert," he said, very slowly. "It was made of sand."

Skull's face went completely blank. Shukaku started cackling in his mind.

"I have no idea what castle you're talking about," he lied, backing away surreptitiously.

" _I knew that fucking castle wasn't the same,_ _kora_ _!_ " Colonello screamed. " _You fucking bastard !_ "

He lunged at Skull, foregoing weapons to try to throttle him with his bare hands. Skull shrieked and dove out of the way, _accidentally_ letting Colonello slip on some sand that was just coincidentally there.

And so things went back to normal.

* * *

True to form, the Arcobalenos soon seemed to realize that apart from being obvious about his control of sand, Skull hadn't changed an iota. So they relaxed and went back to old habits, except they were a bit less annoying. They also had a tendency to observe him a bit more, clearly trying to catch when he was bullshitting them – sometimes, wonder of wonders, they even _managed_ to see when he was clearly faking.

It was fun.

The best part, though, was how they would _always_ make sure he had enough coffee.

Maybe Skull should tell them that he would hold on even without caffeine – come on, give him a little credit there.

Hmm.

Nah.

Who was he to refuse free coffee.

* * *

Then there was the incident with the mind-walker Mist.

It started with a normal day, Skull simply tinkering with his motorcycle with no less than three cups of coffee besides him, when there was shouting coming from the kitchen. Skull, curious, stood up and wandered to see what was happening.

He opened the door just in time to see Viper channel a truly _impressive_ amount of killing intent, directed towards some unknown Mist user. The guy saw him, and made a victorious exclamation.

"I'll prove to you that I can override weak minds !" He exclaimed.

Skull's thoughts went from a curious _is the guy a fan of Viper_ to an offended _weak mind excuse you_ to a more concerned _uh oh, trouble_ in a second flat. The time it took him to realize that all the Arcobalenos had turned to see _who_ exactly, the guy was looking at, and had all horrified expressions on their faces, actually.

Then, in a burst of mist flames, _something_ tried to crash in his mind.

 _I WILL EAT YOU, PATHETIC WORM !_ Shukaku roared in his mind.

In front of him, the Mist user crumpled down like a ragdoll.

Skull's brain, clearly not working too well that day, went _a bit like a Yamanaka isn't it_ and then _oh shit_ in realization. For a long moment, he just stared at the guy in stunned silence. Then he offered a wide-eyed look at the others, who were all still staring at him, probably waiting for something.

"So, um," he said, awkwardly, "In my defense, I didn't know he was going to do that ?"

"Skull ?" Fon asked, a bit weakly.

"Yes ?" Skull said, uncertainly.

There was a huge sigh of relief coming from everyone all at once. Skull blinked, then realized they had all thought the guy had possessed him. Which, _yeah_ , it would have ended badly.

Then they seemed to understand what he had said, and all of them turned to the crumpled body.

"Oh, shit," Colonello said, and then a bit morbidly, "What's wrong with him ? Is he dead, kora ?"

Shit. All of them converged towards the body, and Reborn shook his head – apparently not dead, but clearly unconscious. Viper turned to him, suspicious.

"What did you do ?" They asked.

"Erm, _I_ didn't do anything, but, um," Skull diverted his gaze, "Shukaku _might_ have ?"

Viper seemed to take a moment to wrap their head around the ' _oh right, murderous demon in his head_ ' reminder. Lal was the one to ask.

"Can you- um, undo whatever Shukaku did ?" She asked warily.

Skull blinked. Well, it couldn't hurt to _try_ , right ? He tried to call for Shukaku, but for once the demon was suspiciously silent. As if sulking or-

Turning inwards, he narrowed his eyes at the way Shukaku was stubbornly keeping his jaws shut.

 _Oh my god,_ he said flatly, staring at the demon, _you really tried to eat him._

Shukaku shot him a defiant look, but tellingly didn't open his mouth. God damn it. Skull scowled at him, and did the mental equivalent of poking the demon with a long pointy stick.

 _Spit him out_ , he ordered. Shukaku stubbornly curled on himself, growling in his throat. _Spit him out, Shukaku, you infernal beast !_

Shukaku shook his head.

 _I swear-_ Skull growled. He jumped on the demon, and started trying to wrestle his mouth open. _Spit ! Come on, spit ! It's not healthy for you to eat that sort of things !_

Shukaku gave him a _look_ , but after more incentive to ' _just spit it out you overgrown raccoon_ ', reluctantly opened his mouth let something fall out. Both him and Skull stared for a long moment at the rather mangled, chewed out _thing_ that had been the Mist.

 _I don't think he's breathing any more_ , Shukaku offered, a bit sheepish but a lot smug too.

 _No, somehow I don't think so either_ , Skull replied, dry as Suna.

He huffed, and did the mental equivalent of booting a bag of trash out of his mind. Then he opened his eyes, to find everyone staring at him- And then at the mind-walker's body, when he suddenly started to convulse.

"What's wrong with him, now ?" Reborn asked, warily.

"Erm," Skull cringed a bit. "I had to force Shukaku to spit him out. He was a bit… chewed."

They all stared at him in disbelief. Skull gave them his best innocent look.

Somehow, they didn't seem to fall for it. Skull blamed the convulsing man on the floor. It _did_ hamper his credibility a little.

"Well," he finally said, "I hope he wasn't someone important."

 _Tasted like shit,_ was Shukaku's input.

Skull, like most of the time, tuned him out.

* * *

 **The END !**

* * *

 **Yes, you've read that right. This was the last chapter of 'No One's Here To Sleep'. It was a fun ride while it lasted, but I'm afraid it must end here. I hope that you've all enjoyed reading as much as I've enjoyed writing it !**

 **Leave a Review on your way out ! ;)**

 **Cheers !**

 **(** **Please do not ask me to update or change my mind. Because guess what ? It'll make me simply want to never update it ever again, even if by some miracle I got the muse back.)**


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